Bhil Women in History

The Bhils have fought valiantly against their marginalisation by the mainstream society and their alienation from their lands. Along with the men on many occasions women too have fought shoulder to shoulder with them. Unfortunately there are even fewer records of these women fighters than there are of the men fighters. The history of these women fighters needs to be documented because they provide an inspiration to the present generation of Bhil women not only to fight against the centralised market and governance systems that continue to marginalise them but also against the patriarchal oppression they face in their own society. The short histories of three brave Bhil women are related here.

1.       Sursibai

Sursibai, a Bhil tribal of the Nayak sub tribe, was a resident of Panchmohli village of the present day district of Barwani in Madhya Pradesh in the nineteenth century. The two decades from 1837 to 1857 witnessed a series of dry years resulting in much lesser agricultural production than normal years. Despite the famine like conditions prevailing due to lesser agricultural production the British refused to waive the heavy taxes that they levied on the farmers. When the Bhil farmers protested they were subjected to beatings and imprisonment by the British. When this oppression reached an extreme Sursibai organised one hundred and fifty Bhil women into a fighting unit and gave them training in the art of warfare.  These women then vowed in front of their tribe Goddess Nagri Mata that they would not rest till they had freed their territories from the British and began their campaign. Sursibai had a son who was in his teens and his name was Bhima and he too was inspired by his mother’s example. In 1837 Bhima formed a fighting unit of his own with men and women trained in warfare. Thereafter from 1840 to 1864 Sursi and Bhima together led their tribe in a long and attritious war in the whole of the West Nimad region of the present day Madhya Pradesh against the British. Initially the fighting unit was five hundred strong but at the peak of the struggle in 1857 to 1860 the strength went upto thousands.

The local Bhil Corp of the British was not able to subdue the Nayaks and so additional reinforcements were brought in from Gujarat by the British. The Magistrate in charge of the Khandesh area south of the River Narmada forced the traders of Sendhwa town to deposit their money with the British. This money amounting to Rs 7 Lakhs was being taken secretly for safe keeping from Sendhwa when the convoy was attacked by a raiding party led by Bhima and Sursibai and they took away all the money saying it belonged to the poor Bhil farmers. At this time Tatya Tope the great general who fought against the British in 1857 came to Nimad and sought Bhima’s help to cross the River Narmada. Bhima successfully aided Tatya  to ford the river and Tatya promised to return the favour someday once the British had been removed and he left behind two hundred of his fighters to help Bhima in his struggles.

Once the British were able to subdue the rest of the country they turned their attention to the Bhil rebellion in Nimad. A big force under Captain R. H. Keating raided Dholabavri village and then on 13^th February 1859 a fierce battle took place in Sursibai’s village Panchmohli. Bhima was able to escape with some of his men but many others including Sursibai were arrested and imprisoned in Mandleshwar. The British tortured Sursibai to get information about Bhima but she resisted all the torture including being deprived of food and water and died on 28^th February 1859. The other Bhil inmates rose up in revolt and occupied the jail in protest and military force had to be brought in from outside to subdue them. Eventually many of them were executed after a summary trial and others were deported to imprisonment in the Andaman Cellular Jail. Bhima carried on his fight from the jungles and on 16^th December 1866 launched a big attack on the British. However on 2^nd April 1867 he was apprehended as a result of treachery and subsequently hanged.

2.       Kalibai

Kalibai was a Bhil teen aged girl residing in Rastapal village of the present day Dungarpur village in the 1940s. Once the Quit India Movement was announced on 9^th August 1942 the people in Rajasthan which was mostly under the rule of Indian Princes owing allegiance to the British also came out in open opposition to colonial rule. Gandhian activists in Dungarpur like Bhogilal Pandya, Shobhalal Gupta, Manaklal Verma and others inspired by the Gandhian leader Thakkar Bapa established the Dungarpur Sevak Sangh. The Sevak Sangh used to run schools for Dalits and Adivasis in the district. Under pressure from the British the Prince of Dungarpur forbade the Sevak Sangh from running these schools once the Quit India Movement started. A more broad based organisation called the Praja Mandal was formed to conduct a campaign against this unjust closing of schools and the more general demand that colonial rule should end. The Prince took repressive action against the workers of the Praja Mandal and had his forces beat them up and send them to jail. This led to an intensification of the protests by the people.

The state police went to Rastapal village on 19^th June 1947 to close the school there which was running in the house of Nanabhai Khat. Nanabhai refused to close the school and and lock it and give the keys to the police. The police then beat up Nanabhai severely and rendered him unconscious and took him away with them for jailing him. However, Nanabhai died from his injuries on the way before the police could reach their camp. After this the police beat up the teacher Sengabhai Bhil who had continued to teach the children despite Nanabhai’s death. After rendering him unconscious the police tied Sengabhai to their truck and took him away dragging him on the road. Unable to see this a student of the school Kalibai ran towards the truck with a sickle to cut the ropes and free Sengabhai from this torture. The police warned her not to run after the vehicle but Kalibai did not listen and reaching her teacher cut the rope with one swish of her sickle. The police were incensed at this and as Kalibai bent down to tend to Sengabhai they shot her in the back. Kalibai fell down unconscious and later died in the hospital in Dungarpur.

This unjust murder of a girl student of the school for trying to save her teacher incensed the Bhil Adivasis and they got together from surrounding villages and a massive twelve thousand people fully armed with bows, arrows and swords and their traditional drums descended on Dungarpur town. The Prince was forced to release the leaders of the Praja Mandal from jail and they calmed down the Bhil populace and convinced them to return. The people of the village constructed a statue of the brave thirteen year old girl Kalibai in Rastapal and even today a fair is held there on the occasion of her martyrdom.

3.       Dashriben

Born in a Choudhury Adivasi family in Vedchhi village in Valod Tehsil of present day Tapi district in Gujarat on 3^rd October 1918, Dashriben grew up to be the foremost Gandhian Adivasi woman leader of the freedom movement. She came from a family that had a history of leadership of Adivasi struggles.  Her maternal grandfather Jeevanbhai Choudhury had been the first to organise the Adivasis of western India against the oppression of the British who had beginning with the promulgation of the Indian Forest Act in 1884 and the Land Acquisition Act in 1894 severely dispossessed the Adivasis. This devastation of the Adivasis continued with the ban on alcohol distillation and the introduction of licenses for selling liquor and during the drought of 1890 the British refused to reduce the taxes on Adivasi farmers and so they had to borrow at usurious rates from moneylenders who later usurped their land. Jeevanbhai organised a “Kali Paraj Parishad” or Black People’s Conference in Vedchhi in 1903 in which Adivasi from as far afield as Dahanu in Maharashtra and Dahod in Gujarat congregated to formulate a campaign for securing the rights of Adivasis.

The Swaraj Ashram was established by Gandhi’s son Ramdas and Vallabhbhai Patel in Bardoli in 1922 and Jeevanbhai and other Adivasi leaders then went and met them requested them to arrange for Gandhi to visit Vedchhi and provide guidance to the ongoing Adivasi struggles. After this Gandhi’s wife Kasturba attended the Kali Paraj Parishad organised at Shelpur village in Surat district in 1923 and he himself came to the Parishad organised the next year in Vedchhi village when Dashriben was just six years old. A Swaraj Ashram was established in Vedchhi and very soon hundred villages nearby had people wearing khadi and spinning yarn. Gandhi came again to Vedchhi in 1926 and then when Dashriben went to garland him with a handspun yarn he noted the golden bangles she was wearing and asked her not to wear them as there were many poor in the country who did not have proper clothes to wear. Dashri immediately took off her bangles and gave them to her father to give to Gandhi. Ever since then she never wore ornaments again.

Vallabhbhai Patel started the Bardoli Satyagraha for non-payment of taxes to the British to protest against their unjust policies in 1928. Patel took Dashriben with him to his meetings because she could sing protest songs very well which inspired the people. The Satyagraha went on for two years during which the Choudhury family along with other protesting farmers had to bear tremendous repression as the British confiscated their property for not paying taxes and also the police beat them up and jailed them frequently. Ultimately the problem was resolved with Gandhi’s intervention. Later in 1930 Dashriben took part in the famous Salt Satyagraha with Gandhi by marching to Dandi along with thousands of other protesters.

Dashriben used to study in the national schools set up by Gandhi in which a new education pattern called Nai Talim was introduced. She was studying in the national school at Maroli in 1933 when the Swadeshi Movement began and once again she took part in this along with other women. Women sat in Satyagraha before the traders of Surat preventing them from selling foreign cloth. The women were arrested and a case was filed against them. When the magistrate asked Dashriben what her name was she said “Bharat”. When she was asked where she resided she once again said “Bharat”. On being asked what she did she answered “ I work for India’s freedom”. Then the police put a gun to her chest and asked her whether she knew what would happen if it went off and she replied “ If I die then I will become a martyr in the cause of freedom and if I am alive then Bharat will be free”. The magistrate said then said that this girl is very dangerous and she was sentenced to a year in prison.

Dashriben first was sent to Sabarmati prison and later transferred to Yeravda prison in Pune. Gandhi and Kasturba were already in prison there at the time. Gandhi and Kasturba were prevented from meeting each other and they could only communicate through letters. Kasturba had to ask others to write her letters as she was non-literate. One day she asked Dashriben whether she would teach her to read and write and Dashriben readily agreed. For four months Dashriben taught Kasturba how to read and write and used to write her letters to Gandhi. Then she asked Kasturba to write herself as she had learnt enough. When Gandhi received the first letter written by Kasturba he was very pleased and wrote back to ask who had taught her. Kasturba wrote that she had been taught by her student Dashriben. Gandhi then wrote a letter to Dashriben commending her and saying that what he had not been able to do in all these years she had done in just four months!!!

After coming out of prison she went to study at the Sabarmati Ashram and there she met many leaders of the freedom movement and also Indira Gandhi with whom she began a lifelong friendship. Dashriben led the rally in Bardoli town on 21^st August 1942 when the Quit India Movement was declared. She led a five thousand strong mass of people holding the tri-colour aloft with the intention of planting it in front of the Police Station. However, when they neared the police station they were baton charged by the Police and one baton landed on Dashriben’s hand. Nevertheless she did not let the tri-colour fall and handed it over to another protester to take away to safety. She was again sentenced to a year in prison for this protest march. After her release she married another freedom fighter Kanjibhai Choudhury in 1944 and they both began working as teachers in the Gram Shaala established in Vedchhi. After independence Kanjibhai became a full time social worker and Dashriben completed her higher education and took the job of a teacher. As a teacher she has taught thousands of Adivasi children and youth and raised awareness among them. Later after retiring in 1976 she once again became active in the social movement as the president of the Gujarat Khadi Gramodyog Board for ten years. Kanjibhai passed away in 1998. Thereafter Dashriben was active as a leader of the Adivasi Ekta Parishad till her passing away in Vedchhi on 2^nd September 2013.

Conclusion

The above history shows that the Bhil Adivasi women too have been at the forefront of struggles for justice. After the compilation of this history a seminar was conducted in Alirajpur on 16.12.2013 where both men and women village level activists of the KMCS were told the stories of these brave Bhil women fighters. The need for women to come out in larger numbers and emulate these great fighters to ensure a better deal for the Adivasis was underlined by speaker after speaker at the seminar.

Actualising Adivasi Self Rule

Local Self Governance mediated by the Adivasi Gram Sabha in small close knit hamlets which makes direct democracy possible is the best way to ensure just and sustainable development at the grassroots. The Madhya Pradesh Panchayat Raj Act as amended to accord with the provisions of the Panchayat Extension to Scheduled Areas (PESA) Act provides for the establishment of separate Gram Sabhas in each Adivasi hamlet even if it is part of a larger Panchayat consisting of several hamlets or villages. Once this separate Gram Sabha is established and recognised by the administration after a due process of enquiry to establish that it is bona fide, all the funds meant for rural development through various schemes will be routed directly to the Gram Sabha of the hamlet and it will decide on how these funds are to be spent. Thus, theoretically this provides the Gram Sabha with immense powers. Combined with the provisions of the Forest Rights Act which too empower the Gram Sabha in the hamlet and give it extensive powers to control the land, forests and water in its domain this will usher in a radically new decentralised governance paradigm.

However, as always there is a big slip between the cup and the lip. The KMCS has started a campaign since 2012 to establish these Gram Sabhas and many have been formed by the hamlets passing the requisite resolution and the applications have been submitted to the District Administration. However, the administration is dilly dallying on implementation. Initially the administration said that there was no such provision. When the law was read out to them they reluctantly began the process of verification for one or two hamlets. However, since then the matter is stuck and in all probability will require legal intervention in the end.  To improve awareness of this provision and build up support for it among the people a PESA Yatra was taken out in the months of November and December covering many villages of Sondwa Block.  A picture of the Yatra is shown below. A team of men and women waving green flags of the KMCS  went from one village to the next and held meetings there. Then a team from that village would set off for the next village and so on. The picture below shows the advance women's part of a KMCS team going from one village to another.

The meetings held in the villages discussed the legal provisions in detail and the way in which the administration was refusing to expedite the process of registration of the Gram Sabhas. The result of these meetings was that the people decided that first a big rally should be taken out in Alirajpur and legal notices served to the administration asking it to implement the law, failing which the KMCS would be forced to approach the higher courts. A composite picture of one such village meeting is shown below.

The experience of the KMCS over the past year in trying to implement this radical provision of PESA Act shows how difficult it is to get Adivasi Self Rule actualised on the ground. 

Women Power to the Fore

Khatamri is a Bhil Adivasi hamlet of about 60 families perched on top of the Vindhyas in the extreme south west corner of Madhya Pradesh. From the highest vantage point in this hamlet it is possible to get a view of the River Narmada lower down about 10 kilometers away at the foot of the Vindhyas. This scenic beauty has lured the Forest Department into planning the construction of a tourist guest house at this vantage point to attract rich people from the towns and cities. When the people of the village protested that this would deprive them of the precise point where their cattle and goats rest after grazing the Forest Department staff said that they would not need to tend to their animals anymore as the income from tourism would be much more!! The villagers of course did not buy this blatant lie and instead asked the Forest Department to ensure that the Government opened a school in their hamlet for their children which would be a better way to ensure that they improved their livelihood situation. The Government expectedly has not done anything to fulfill this legitimate demand of the villagers.
However, the Khedut Mazdoor Chetna Sangath took heed. A primary school, the Motia Bhil Bhanai Ghar, has now been started in Khatamri village in December 2013, the third such school after the ones already running in Chilakda and Bada Amba. Like in the earlier cases this school too has been made possible by a grant from well wishers Deep Pande and Shweta Sharma who reside in the United States of America. The difference with this school is that the teacher is a woman Senabai shown in the picture below.

This is no mean achievement on the part of Senabai and KMCS. There are no Bhil women in the work area of KMCS who are educated enough to be teachers. In fact Senabai is from Gujarat and has come to Khatamri after marriage to Sunil. Ever since the grants for opening a school came to the KMCS a desperate search has been going on to set up a school in one of the villages of the organisation that do not have schools in them. Initially it was decided to start a school in Vakvi but a teacher could not be found who would go and teach in this remote village. Then the village of Khundi was chosen and once again a teacher could not be found. Then Sunil married Sena and brought her to Khatamri and the problem was solved!!! 

Patriarchy is a serious problem in Bhil society and the KMCS finds it difficult to get female field workers. At present there is only one Bhilala educated woman as full time field worker. The other two full time field workers are non-literate. While they are competent enough but the lack of literacy does hamper their ability to report and record the work they do. Thus, schooling of girls is an important goal for the empowerment of women and if there is a lady teacher then that is even better.

Children to the Fore

One of the important activities of the Khedut Mazdoor Chetna Sangath (KMCS) is the conduct of Bal Panchayat meetings in which the children of the village get together to discuss their issues and seek solutions to them.  Each village has a Motia Bhil Bal Samooh or children’s group named after the legendary Bhil king Motia. In the Bal Panchayat each of the child members of this group both boys and girls are encouraged to speak out. Generally the main problem confronting the children is the lack of proper education. The villages have schools but in many cases there are no school buildings and the classes are conducted in some private villager’s hut. There are one or two temporary teachers but they do not come to teach regularly. There are no teaching aids and even the free text books are not available. This is a gross violation of the provisions of the Right to Education Act. Consequently in these Bal Panchayat meetings, the activists of the KMCS discuss at length the detailed provisions of the RTE with the children. Following this applications are drawn up listing the deficiencies in the school with a demand that these be rectified. These applications are then submitted to the District Collector in Alirajpur by the KMCS.  A combined list of these applications has also been sent to the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights. There has been some improvement in the attendance of teachers, but the provision of proper school buildings and teaching aids still remains a distant dream.

The Bal Panchayat meetings are also an occasion for acquainting the children with their own glorious history and culture which are not taught in the standard syllabus of the government school system. The KMCS has extensively written up the oral myths and songs of the Bhils and also the history of the Alirajpur area. These new texts which synthesise the traditional Bhili culture with a modern understanding are used to enthuse an interest in their own culture in the Bhili children.

Unless the schools run properly there is the tendency of the parents to put their children to work in grazing the animals, fishing, collecting fruits and herbs and the like. Thus, the children lose out on the chance to improve their livelihoods in future and also to increase their knowledge for upgrading their agriculture. Consequently, the running of schools is a major child rights and justice issue and has been taken up on a priority basis by the KMCS.

Occasionally the children of neighbouring villages gather together in one village for a day long Bal Mela or fair in which they play games and sing and dance and shout slogans expressing their demands for the implementation of the RTE. Thus, the Bal Panchayats are an effective medium for the mobilisation and conscientisation of the children of the area so that they grow up to be the next generation of activists of the KMCS and continue the struggle for the Adivasi Millennium.

The Unending Battle for Justice

The National Alliance of People's Movements reports on the recent arrest of the Adivasi Satyagrahis of the Narmada Bachao Andolan who have occupied and farmed Government land for the past three years in protest against not being given proper rehabilitation and resettlement for lands lost in the Sardar Sarovar and Jobat dams -

40 Narmada Adivasi Oustees in Jail since 4 days

Demand Unconditional Release : Announce intense struggle

Hundreds storm offices of Collector and SP, Alirajpur

Condemn Illegal Eviction from 2.5 year old Jobat Zameen Hak Satyagraha

8^th January: Hundreds of adivasis and farmers, representing a large number of oustees affected by the Sardar Sarovar and Jobat Dam Projects in the Alirajpur District of Madhya Pradesh, stormed the office of the Collector, Mr. N.P. Deheria yesterday and engaged in a day-long protest, demanding the immediate and unconditional release of about 40 adivasis, including 6 women, who were arrested on 5^th January in a completely illegal manner from the site of the Zameen Haq Satyagraha at Jobat.

The protestors were stopped at the gates of the Collectorate by a large contingent of armed police brought in from Alirajpur, Badwani, Dhar and Thandla, while the women, men, elderly and youth, tried to barge inside for a dialogue with the Collector. The women, who had come along with little children demanded that their family members must be immediately released otherwise, they would sit on an indefinite protest at the Collectorate.

The Collector, came down thrice and heard the issues raised by the oustees from behind the gates, but could not given concrete and correct answers. After many hours of intense action and heated discussions with the Collector, SP, Addl SP and the Rehabilitation Officer, NVDA, it was assured that the process of offering land to the Jobat-dam oustees would begin within 3 days and process of showing land to the SSP oustees would begin within 10 days.

Shouting down the false information provided to the Collector by the NVDA officers that ‘the oustees don’t want land, that all have been paid compensation, that many are non-affected and that oustees are being provoked, the oustees stated that illegal submergence in the hilly villages of  Sardar Sarovar began since 1994 and submergence in Jobat began since 2003. However, till date, cultivable, irrigable, suitable and un-encroached land has not been provided to the affected families. The only land offered to the SSP-affected adivasis was bad, uncultivable, encroached land, which is in utter violation of law and orders of the Supreme Court.

It may be noted that the Collector of Alirajpur, deployed a large contingent of police force on 5^th January, 2014 and illegally took into custody 40 Satyagrahis, including women, 75 year old and 2 children, who were camping at the Government Agricultural Farm, Jobat. It is well-known that hundreds of oustees have been on an indefinite Satyagraha, since the past 2.5 years and have been cultivating the land, not just as a protest, but also to feed their families, who have already faced illegal submergence since many years.

The Jobat Satyagraha is one of the longest non-violent, occupation struggles in recent history and has been resorted to by the oustees after umpteen attempts of petitioning, court cases and mass action by the adivasis. The oustees have been cultivating the land and have also reaped three harvests on this land. Infact recently the Collector also permitted the oustees to have a temporary power connection for irrigating the crop. However, since two weeks notices were being issued to the oustees to vacate the land, else they would be forcibly evicted. Our replies to these notices and appeal for a concrete dialogue were not responded to by the authorities and a brutal eviction drive ensued. It may be noted that the arrests are completely motivated and arbitrary, since the fact that the oustees have not yet been rehabilitated and the fact that all the officials, including the police have complete knowledge of the occupation since 2.5 years is well-known.

Infact, Dr. Afroz Ahmed, Director, Rehabilitation, Narmada Control Authority, indore and Kantilal Bhuria, Former Tribal Affairs Minister, Govt. of India also visited the Satyagraha and engaged in dialogue with the oustees.Dr. Afroz Ahmed also assured to raise the matter with the Rehabilitation Sub-Group, Delhi, after which a direction was issued by the Sub Group in its meeting on 12^th September, 2013 to the Govt. of M.P. to offer Government farm lands in rehabilitation.

The arrests have been made seemingly under Section 151 Cr.P.C. i.e. ‘causing disturbance to peace in the area’, while the oustees were in the farm land and there was absolutely nothing they did to disturb peace in the locality. Secondly, an FIR registered against 100-150 ‘unknown people’ 2.5 years ago when the Satyagraha started, but no arrests were made, is now being used against these oustees in a wrongful and vindictive manner ! It may also be noted that in a similar case of illegal arrest and lathicharge at the Badwani Zameen Hak Satyagraha in June, 2007, the High Court, Jabalpur directed the Govt. of M.P. to pay Rs. 10,000 each to the arrested Satyagrahis and half payment has already been made, after the Supreme Court’s intervention and the case is still pending.

While in Sardar Sarovar, many hilly adivasis have not accepted any cash compensation, most of the Jobat Dam advasi oustees being illiterate, their signatures were taken on affidavits and were paid very meagre cash compensation, many years ago and their lands / houses were illegally submerged without being provided alternative cultivable land. In the presence of full media, the Rehabilitation Officer of the Narmada Valley Development Authority accepted that the applications of hundreds of oustees demanding land for land and for return of compensation, as per the Supreme Court’s orders in 2011 have not been attended to for more than one and a half year.

A day before, the oustees also marched to the office of the Superintendent of Police, Mr. Akhilesh Jha and questioned the arbitrary manner of arrests.  He was convinced that the contentious issue is lack of rehabilitation and that the police has no role to play. The oustees also submitted a complaint under the SC and ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 demanding legal action against all the concerned officers for arresting the adivasis, evicting them for the land, causing destruction of the standing crop at the Satyagraha and submergence of their lands and homes, without lawful rehabilitation. The protestors issued an ultimatum to Government of Madhya Pradesh, through the Collector, Alirajpur to unconditionally release all the jailed oustees and begin the process of land-based rehabilitation, within 3 days, otherwise an intense struggle would follow.

Please do call the Collector and SP, Alirajpur to immediately release all the oustees unconditionally and begin the process of rehabilitation.

Mr. N.P. Dehariya -Collector, Alirajpur – Ph - 09425188061

Mr. Akhilesh Jha, Superintendent of Police – Ph - 9753936277

Idibai            Surbhan Bhilala            Kamla Yadav                 Meera (09179148973) 

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National Alliance of People’s MovementsNational Office : 6/6, Jangpura B, Mathura Road, New Delhi 110014
Phone : 011 26241167 / 24354737 Mobile : 09818905316
Web : www.napm-india.org

Facebook : www.facebook.com/NAPMindia

Twitter : @napmindia

Meeting with A Long Lost Friend

Away from the hurly burly of politics and back to what is close to my anarchist heart. I like nothing better than the secluded life of a farmer in remote hilly fastnesses. After almost thirty years I met up with Rajagopal again in the Western Ghats in Kerala serenely content in doing organic farming on his seven acre farm in Sholayur in Palakkad district. Rajagopal and I had started our journey in activism for Adivasi rights together in Tilonia which is the headquarters of the Social Work and Research Centre in Ajmer district of Rajasthan. We used to go up the hill to meditate under the full moon there!! However, after 1985 when we met briefly for the first and only time we had lost touch. But about a couple of years ago Rajagopal found me on the Internet and since then we have been in touch regularly. I finally found time a few days ago to make it to his farm. He gave up working for the Adivasis in Palakkad through his NGO in 1995 and has since been concentrating on organic farming and is part of an international network of organic farmers. Rajagopal and his wife Lily have together put in hard labour and developed this small hilly farm into a literal heaven of natural beauty. There is a pond with ducks quacking in it and hens and turkeys, a cat and a dog and of course the boars, elephants, monkeys, squirrels and the like from the jungles surrounding the farm.

There is a bewildering assortment of fruit trees, some of which I was tasting for the first time, and of course the Kerala staples of coffee and pepper which incidentally provide the most income. The life is simple and hard consisting of daily doses of labour. Rajagopal and Lily's two sons have grown up and gone away for higher studies but the two are enjoying themselves working away in their green heaven.

Here they are standing with their younger son Vivek in front of the many huge bamboo clumps that they have planted on their farm. There is even a tree house atop this clump which can be reached by climbing on the short branch stubs on the bamboos. The farm is in fact a hybrid between hard and simple living and modern communication as Rajagopal is a very active proselytiser for natural living on the Internet and spends some time everyday posting and propagating organic living.
Subhadra and I too plan to go to the villages and do farming once our son Ishaan is off to college in a few years time and so this visit to Rajagopal and Lily's farm was a pilgrimage of sorts that has inspired us and given us many ideas about how to go about living a natural life on a farm.

Time to Change the Game!!!

The new year starts with the gauntlet having been thrown down by Arvind Kejriwal and the Aam Aadmi Party not only for the mainstream political parties but also for mass social movements. While the mainstream parties have already started thinking seriously about how to take up the challenge of the AAP that does not seem to be the case with the mass social movements. Ever since the stellar performance of the AAP in the Delhi elections I have been hearing criticism of the party from social activists saying that it is populist, it does not address the fundamental problem of globally dominant capitalism, it is mute on the question of the exploitation of Adivasis and Dalits, it has no vision for the rural areas or for the serious environmental problems that the country faces and that it has no ideology apart from the single refrain of removing corruption. Even though I too was sceptical about the AAP being able to achieve much in the elections and even now am sceptical of what they will eventually achieve after coming to power, the results have shown that Arvind Kejriwal and his team were bang on with their political strategy as far as winning the elections were concerned. Unlike the other Social Activists, therefore, I have done some soul searching and learnt some lessons about what to do in future.
The most important lesson is that the AAP had gone to the masses with a message that they could understand. Keep it simple is the motto. Even if it is true that global capitalism holds sway through its control of economic, knowledge and media systems, it is very difficult to make people understand this and be ready to mobilise in large numbers to overthrow it. However, people do understand that corruption is preventing them from getting their entitlements and inflation is eating into their meagre incomes and that a government that they elect should do something about this. The AAP made a convincing pitch that they would target these two immediate problems instead of going for the longer term solution of overthrow of the capitalist system which alone would seem to satisfy most hard core social activists. The people are able to discern that the overthrow of the capitalist system is not a viable goal in the short term while removing corruption and making social services cheap and accessible and so life a little more liveable than it is presently, certainly are. During the one year since the formation of the party, the AAP members hit the streets in large numbers and carried out an intensive mass campaign that broke the cynicism of the people and they believed that it would deliver on the simple down to earth promises it was making. That for me is the great game changer. We in the social movements have spent many years trying to convince people that we would be able to mitigate their woes but have never succeeded and remained confined to fighting losing battles in our isolated corners. Yet Arvind Kejriwal has succeeded in such a grand way in the very centre of power in this country. Along the road the AAP has been able to muster huge numbers of committed people who have volunteered their time, intellect and energy and also collected huge financial resources by social movement standards.  The greatest achievement is that the AAP has been able to politicise a huge section of the populace who had never before thought about hitting the streets but are doing so aggressively now.
There are no doubt many problems with the populist and anti-corruption centric platform of the AAP which may not be economically and environmentally sustainable in the long run and also there are doubts as to whether it will be able to maintain the same purity of purpose in future as it will certainly face many obstacles that other game changing political formations have faced earlier but the take away from its performance so far for me personally is that we must keep our message simple and believable if we want to take the masses along with us in larger numbers than we have done so far. Therefore, we in the Khedut Mazdoor Chetna Sangath are holding a two day brain storming session on the 5th and 6th of January to discuss the new political phenomenon in this country's politics that is the AAP and in what way we can learn from its immediate success and improve our own political strategies for achieving the Adivasi Millennium.