By Badri Raina, ZNet, Nov. 17, 2009
“There has been a systematic failure in giving tribals a stake in the modern economic system—the alienation built over decades is taking a dangerous toll”. . .
“The systemic exploitation of our tribal communities. . .can no longer be tolerated.”
(Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, Hindustan Times, 14/11/09, p.10)
I
A government report just released on the situation of India’s tribals blames the government itself and companies like the Tatas and Essar for the disquiet in the tribal “hinterlands.” As you would expect, the latter have righteously washed their distinguished hands of the insinuation.
Brought out by the Ministry of Rural Development, the report (some tribute to aspects of Indian democracy) in a chapter titled “State-connived land alienation” speaks forthrightly of how land grabs in India’s mineral rich states—Orissa, Chattisgarh, Jharkhand—happen with “direct and indirect participation of revenue officials.” To those must be added the more notorious segments of the political class, now most strikingly represented by the erstwhile chief minister of Jharkhand, Madhu Koda, who, by all accounts, is alleged to have made a pile of some Rs.4000/-crores over a span of five or six years of ‘rule.’ That Mr. Koda is himself a tribal leader must suggest how enticing and promising the dominant paradigms of ‘development’ are.
That the debate around the issue has penetrated the solid bastions of capitalist theorists is rather hearteningly evidenced by the following sub-heading in the editorial of Hindustan Times of Nov.,16: “‘Tribal land grabs’ aren’t just an ‘NGO’ theory.”
Tags: Badri Raina, India, India's tribals, Naxalism, violence
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