Drought Sainath Text

'
M M x
[
The human face of poverty '
the poor
I" ths dry
in India are,
languor*
too often re-rfjped to statistics. Everybody loves
t development reports and economic
of
projections, the true misery. ortho 312 million who live
*
I
bfeW the poverty lino, or the 26 rfiillion displaced by
various projects, or the 13 mi irion who suffer from
a good drought
tuhoreuEosia gets overlooked. In this thoroughly
res&arched study of the poorest of the poor, we got to See
how they manage, whot sustains them, and the efforts, stories from India's poorest districts
* often ludicrous, to do something for them. The people

f who figure in this book typify Iho lives and aspirations of
I large section of the Indian society, and their stories
Journal lam of a high order pointed
present us with the true face of development. wgiil reieafthed ... a[iv& with pens cpi and
Ihopqht deww> i he widail reodttf&hip
* .an extraordinary achievement ,
.
has avoided
the sensatia-nof—the spectacular natural disasters or - SyeW JC.te/nan,\
m
the outbreak of plague—ond concentrated instead crNînr of The of India
on building up a detailed daily picture, piece 1
piece, of how people live,

1
— Pot nek French *
L a stinging anatomy of heafth and educational

€ .
^
predicaments, usury, drought, displacement and
same spirited resistance * » it is a beautifully .
judged account, bristling with vigorous humanity.. 1
— The Ada on Sunday

if
Cover photograph fay Amil PteifiTchcn
Cover design* by KovFtQ DuFIq
jut
A PENGUIN ORIGINAL HA7 *r *
Social Studios
India Rs 350
wMw.pcnguj nb*Kih?i nd i<M •# R Saina
PENGUIN BOOKS
EVERYBODY LOVES A GOOD DROUGHT
Palagummi Sainath is a Mumbai- based freelance

journalist. He took an M.A. in History from Jawaharlal
Nehru University, New Delhi and joined the United News of
India in 1980. Later he became foreign editor of The Daily
and deputy chief editor of the weekly Blitz in Mumbai. In
early 1993 he left Blitz to work full-time on rural poverty,
after winning a Times of India fellowship that enabled him
to pursue the subject. His work in that area won him a
further twelve awards and fellowships over the next two
years, including the prestigious European Commission s
journalism award, the Lorenzo Natali Prize.
Sainath has been a visiting lecturer in journalism,

development and politics at universities in India, Canada,
the United States, Europe and Australia. He has been
directly involved in training journalists and has also been
on the faculty of the Social Communications Media
department of the Sophia Polytechnic, Mumbai, for the past
ten years. A regular contributor to The Telegraph in
Calcutta, he also writes for the fortnightly Frontline and the
daily Business Line in Madras.
PENGUIN BOOKS
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park,
New Delhi
110 017, India

Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014,
USA
90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario,
Penguin Group (Canada),
M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)
Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England This One’s fOT AppCLI
division of Penguin
Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a
Books Ltd)
Victoria 3124,
Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell,
Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd)
Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632,

New Zealand
(a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd)
Rosebank, Johannesburg
Penguin Group (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue,
2196, South Africa
Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
First published by Penguin Books India 1996
Copyright © P. Sainath 1996
Photographs by the author
All rights reserved
25 24 23 22
Typeset in Bookman and Helvetica by Digital Technologies and Printing Solutions,

New Delhi
Printed at Pauls Press, New Delhi
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise,
be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior written
consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and
without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent
purchaser and without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of
this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system,
or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright
owner and the above-mentioned publisher of this book.
Contents
Introduction ix
Still Crazy After All These Years 1

A brief introduction to the absurd
The Trickle Up & Down Theory 21
Health in rural India
This Is the Way We Go to School 45

A look at rural education
And the Meek Shall Inherit the Earth 69
The problems offorced displacement
Beyond the Margin 133

Survival strategies of the poor
Lenders, Losers, Crooks & Credit 193

Usury, debt and the rural Indian
Crime & No Punishment 231

Targeting the poor
Despots, Distillers, Poets & Artists 271

Characters of the countryside
Everybody Loves a Good Drought 315

Water problems, real and rigged
With Their Own Weapons 371

When the poor fight back
Poverty, Development & the Press 419
Acknowledgements 438 Introduction
Appendix 1: The official poverty line 444
Appendix 2: The districts: A few indicators 448
Glossary 456
References 459 This book is based on a series of reports I filed for the Times
of India from some of the country’s poorest districts. My
District-wise index of stories 468
visits to those districts began in May 1993 on a Times
Fellowship. The last detailed tour I made of one of them
for the purpose of researching this book was in June 1995.
The reports, then and now, are on the living conditions of
the rural poor.
The idea was to look at those conditions in terms of
processes. Too often, poverty and deprivation get covered
as events. That is, when some disaster strikes, when
people die. Yet, poverty is about much more than
starvation deaths or near famine conditions. It is the sum
total of a multiplicity of factors. The weightage of some of
these varies from region to region, society to society,
culture to culture. But at the core is a fairly compact
number of factors. They include not just income and
calorie intake. Land, health, education, literacy, infant
mortality rates and life expectancy are also some of them.
Debt, assets, irrigation, drinking water, sanitation and
jobs count too.
You can have the mandatory 2,400 or 2,100 calories
a day and yet be very poor. India’s problems differ from
those of a Somalia or Ethiopia in crisis. Hunger again —
just one aspect of poverty—is far more complex here. It is
more low level, less visible and does not make for the
dramatic television footage that a Somalia and Ethiopia
do. That makes covering the process more
—
challenging and more important. Many who do not starve
receive very inadequate nutrition. Children getting less
X Everybody Loves a Good Drought Introduction xi
food than they need can look quite mysteries of the official poverty line can look at Appendix
normal. Yet poor
nutrition can impair both mental and 1 at the back of the book.)
physical growth and
they can suffer its debilitating impact all While conceding the importance of that debate, I have
their lives. A
person lacking minimal access to health largely ducked it in this book. The idea here was to focus
at critical
moments can face destruction almost as surely as one on people and not on numbers. Not that the two are
in
hunger. unrelated. The people in this book are much like millions
What isthe access of the hundreds of millions of and millions of other Indians in many other districts. (Of
rural
poor to health and education? Do they enjoy the poor in India, around 40 per cent are landless
thesame
rights and entitlements as other Indians? If not, agricultural labourers. Another 45 per cent are small or
what
prevents them from doing so? Often,
the forms of
marginal farmers. Of the remaining, 7.5 per cent are rural
exploitation that breed and sustain poverty artisans. ‘Others’ make up the rest. Most of those in the
get no more
than a cursory glance. districts I visited belonged to the first two groups.)
Less than three years ago, an ‘expert group’
set up by
But I did want to escape what Swami Vivekananda
the Planning Commission submitted once described as the propensity of the Indian elite to
its report on the
’Estimation of Proportion and Number of
Poor'. The group
discuss for hours whether a glass of water ought to be
which included some of India’s leading taken with the left hand or the right hand. So the focus
economists,’
recommended changes in the Commission’s methods remains on people and their problems.
of
estimating poverty. Their approach found I mostly visited the districts in the off- agricultural
the number of
those below the poverty line to be 312 seasons. The question for me was: What do the poor do In
million. Or close to
39 per cent of the population. Now, the government some 200-240 days during which there is no agriculture
says
a later survey than that used by the group shows that in their areas? How do they survive? What are their coping
those below the official poverty line came
down to 1 9 per mechanisms? What kind of jobs do they find?
cent of the population in 1993-94. To
get to this result,
The answers led me to far more than the ten districts
the Planning Commission has, in I had set out to cover. In most of these areas, huge sections
part, recycled old,
discredited methods of calculation. In the process, of the population simply upped and migrated after the
it has
done away with the suggestions of its own harvest. Often, they took their families with them. So I
expert group.
Gddly, the same Government of
India waved a
ended up travelling and living with the migrants in
different wand at the World districts other than my own. At the end of it, I had covered
Summit for Social
Development in Copenhagen. And that was less close to 80,000 km in seven states across the country. The
than nine
months before it found a fall in poverty in the
country. At
sixty-eight reports in this book, though, are mostly from
that summit, it presented a document eight districts that I concentrated on. These were Ramnad
saying 39.9 per cent
of Indians were below the poverty
line. It was, after all,
and Pudukkottai in Tamil Nadu, Godda and Palamau in
begging for money from donors. The more Bihar, Malkangiri and Nuapada in Orissa and Surguja and
the poor, the
more the money. At home, less than 300 Jhabua in Madhya Pradesh. There are also a few from old
days later, it
produced the 19 per cent estimate. (Those intrigued Koraput and Kalahandi, both in Orissa. (I was unable to
by the
xii Everybody Loves a Good Drought
Introduction xui
complete work on two districts I had chosen in Uttar

Pradesh.) against poverty and oppression. Even this way, some
Ispent around a month in the villages of each of the degree of overlap was hard to avoid.
districts during my first year and a quarter on the project. The reports are village or district specific. Yet, the
In some cases, I returned to the same district more than issues dealt with in the stories and sections are national.
once. At the back of the book is an appendix with some So some sections begin with an essay attempting a brief
basic data on the places I went to and the periods during national overview. For instance, the section on health has
which I visited them. three reports from different villages. But, if you feel you
I chose the districts on this basis: The state-wise
need the context, you can look at the essay that comes
break- up of the percentage of people below the official before them. It has a few of the important numbers and
—
poverty line in 1992 was a starting point no more. The facts on public health in India. The same goes for some of
five states doing worst on that list were —
from the the other sections.
—
bottom Orissa, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh At the back of the book is a glossary of commonly used
and Tamil Nadu. Finding two of the worst districts within terms from Indian languages. Also, a list of abbreviations
each state was not so hard. Mostly, both governments and that appear often in the reports.
independent experts agreed on which those were. To be There are no footnotes in this book. The stories don't
sure, I checked these districts on over twenty indicators need them. All sources for the stories appear in the text of
ranging from infant mortality to irrigation. the reports themselves. As for the section essays, all
The bulk of the reports in this book first appeared in sources for the statistics they carry appear in detail at the
the Times of India as I travelled among the villages in these back of the book. Anyone wanting to follow up on them
districts. Those reports were mainly around 800 words can do so without difficulty.
each. Here, I have added to them from my notebooks and The people who figure in this book represent a huge
tapes and from the second round of visits I made to the section of Indian society. One that is much larger than the
same places. In some cases, I have added a postscript on 10 per cent of the population who run their lives. But a
subsequent developments. section that is beyond the margin of elite vision. And
I began by trying to divide the book into sections on beyond the margins of a press and media that fail to
conventional themes: land, water, forests, tribes, dalits, connect with theiji.
women, development and the like. It didn’t work. Some or

all of these elements appear in virtually every report. How
do you have a section on land issues when they come up
in forty stories? So, instead, there are separate sections
on health and education, for example. Or on survival
strategies. On usury and rural creditand crime. On
drought. On displacement. On the characters of the
countryside. And on how the poor in these places fight
Still Crazy
After
All These
Years
A brief introduction to the absurd

Very few specimens —but a lot of bull
NUAPADA, (Orissa): Mangal Sunani was thrilled. The

government was giving him a miracle cow which would
greatly reduce his poverty. The cow would be impregnated
—
with Jersey semen brought all the way from Pune and
elsewhere. So it could, over the years, make him the proud
owner of several bulls and high-yield milch cows.
A little later, Sunani, a harijan of Ulva village, was even
more grateful. The government had given him an acre of
land free. On this, he was to grow subabul trees to provide
fodder for the cattle he would soon possess. There were
thirty-eight such beneficiaries in his village. And a
thousand in other villages of Komna block. The
government had targeted them for a major dairy
development scheme aimed at reducing poverty.
The beneficiaries were ecstatic when they learned they
would also be paid the min imum wage to work on the free
land, growing those trees. The project, called ‘Samanwita’,
evolved around 1 978. By the early ’80s, it was in full swing.
‘Everybody pitched in enthusiastically,’ says Jagdish
Pradhan of the Paschim Orissa Krishijeevi Sangha.
‘Five agencies got involved,’ he says. Among them were
the Bharatiya Agro Industries Foundation (BAIF), a body
set up by the leading corporate house, Mafatlal. With it
was the Satguru Seva Trust, an NGO linked to the same
group. Also in on the show was the State Bank of India.
Completing the cast were the veterinary and revenue
departments of the state. The theatre of action was mainly
Nuapada, now a separate district in the Kalahandi region.
The authorities, like everybody else pushing the
4 Everybody Loves a Good Drought
Sttll Crazy After All These Years 5
scheme, were committed to their purpose. The idea was to

villagers arose from the wage employment the project
create a new, higher breed of cattle. Impurities, in any
provided. ‘Whoever gives us work that feeds us is god,’ says
degree, were not welcome. How then to ensure that all the
Fudku Tandi.
cows given to the beneficiaries received only Jersey semen
As Tandi government officer came from
recalls, 'A
and none other?
Bhubaneswar. He said we would get employment, wheat
This dilemma weighed heavily on the minds of those
and rice if we planted subabul on the land given to us. At
involved. What if those cows mated with local studs? They
first the subabul grew splendidly. Then they told us to cut
decided to prevent the cows from crossing with local bulls.
the trees down for use as fodder. We did this. But they did
That would ensure the purity of the future race. So,
not grow again.’ (Experts like Pradhan say this tree is most
according to Bishwamber Joshi, principal of the high
unsuited to the soil of the region.)
school at Komna, local bulls were subjected to a massive
What upsets the villagers most is that the employment
castration drive. ‘The livestock inspector relentlessly
is over. The land is back with the government,’ says
castrated all bulls in Komna, Khariar and Khariar Road,’
Mangal Sunani. ‘A revenue official came and told us to
he says. ‘Then, they resorted to artificial insemination of
vacate it. So the thirty-eight acres now lie fallow.’ This
the cows with Jersey semen.’
happened in the villages of other ‘beneficiaries’ too.
Two years and Rs.2 crores later, says Pradhan, ‘just
The disaster has been enormous. Throughout
eight crossbred calves were bom in the entire region. Not
Kalahandi region, people traditionally keep large numbers
one extra litre of milk was produced. And subabul trees
of cattle. The cattle population here is among the highest
had vanished from the area, though they were planted in
in Orissa and India. During lean years, peasants
thousands.’
compensate the loss from agriculture by selling two or
A decade later, the results are even more stark: many
three head of cattle. This is about the only insurance they
villages acrossKomna are without a single stud bull. The
castration drive has rendered the local ‘Khariar bull'
have. Consequently, the decline of the species has
—
extinct in this region at least.
battered their fragile economy.
The mass castrations destroyed the Khariar bull. In
There is not a single bull in this village now, Fudku
Tandi tells me in Ulva. He was another ‘beneficiary’ of —
1980 before the scheme had fully blossomed the —
Samanwita. ‘Eight calves were born,’ he says, ‘very small, Kalahandi District Gazetteer had noted the calibre of this
species. It recorded that ‘if properly maintained, a cow of
useless ones. Some died, the others were sold. Their yield
this breed is capable of yielding four to five litres of milk
of milk was nil.’
Shyamal Kuldeep, also a Samanwita beneficiary, says: per day. This breed was selected for research by the Indian
‘My wife and I managed, to breed six calves, four of which Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR).’
died in a single day. Finally, none survived.’ Locals wonder why the Khariar bull has vanished. The
fact that the cows and bullocks these days are very small
’When we told them of the problems,’ says Chamru
also puzzles them. The number of cattle is not increasing
Niyad, ‘they said they would give
more injections and some
the way it used to. Quality has suffered badly.
day the calves would come.* The initial eagerness of the
‘I have five cows and I buy milk daily from the market,’
StUl Crazy After All These Years 7
minimum wage was actually being paid in the region That .
laughs Bishwamber Joshi. 'And I doubt if there is a single too, for working on your own land. So, in the early days,
decent ox in the whole block now. Several one-time peasants queued up in haste to get into it. In this, the
surplus milk producers suffered enormously and are now officials running the project saw clinching proof of its
milk buyers.’ In 1977-78, pure ghee was actually cheaper success. It told them they had
got their concept right.
than Dalda in Komna and Kharlar. Ghee cost just Rs.7 a The project is one of many that brought disaster
kg against Rs.9 a kg for Dalda. locally,’says Jagdish Pradhan. The people marked out as
"The Khariar bull is almost extinct,’ confirms Dr “targets” are never consulted. There was no demand for a
Maheshwar Satpathy, the veterinary surgeon at Khariar dairy project here. The authorities never realised that
Road. Dr Satpathy says specimens of the old type may still people were interested in employment and not in the
exist outside Kalahandi. But there is ‘definitely a decline subabul tree. Yet, such mistakes are repeated time and
in the quality of Khariar cattle as a whole’. For years prior again.'
to this, cattle-breeders from other parts of Orissa used to As he points out, no one in power ever took a critical
come here to buy Khariar bulls. They were popular as look at the claims of the sponsoring agencies. Nobody
studs and helped improve breeds elsewhere. Now they do asked: Why do we need a dairy project in a milk-surplus
not exist. district? Much less did anyone in authority wonder or
The Paschim Orissa Krishijeevi Sangha has tried to worry about where the Khariar bull had disappeared to.
assess the damage. Their estimate: in Komna block alone, Nor did another question come up. The state had given
the loss of cattle during the last ten or twelve years has the peasants land to grow fodder for cattle. Why not give
been to the tune of Rs.30 lakhs a year. Bishwamber Joshi them land on which to grow food for themselves? In the
believes the decline of cattle wealth has spurred further early days, some of the ‘beneficiaries' did that anyway.
migrations from the region. They grew vegetables. This annoyed the experts, who
There is much irony in that. Curbing migrations is one pulled them up. Such activity endangered a serious
of the ideas behind such schemes. When large sections of m
experiment ai ed at reducing poverty. The authorities
people move out in the non-agricultural season, warned them that the minimum wage was there only if
development of any sort is difficult. As their children go they grew fodder, not food. At the end, they had neither
with them, the schools are empty. There are no takers for fodder nor food. Neither cattle nor land.
jobs on local schemes. Hence the need to give people a Pradhan and Ghanshyam Bhitria of the NGO Jagrut
buffer against drought. And an income during the Shramik Sanghatan are planning a project to revive the
non-agricultural seasons. Then they would not need to Khariar bull. That is, if they can obtain Khariar studs
migrate. Samanwita achieved the opposite. elsewhere and locate them in strategic villages. They also
Why then did so many peasants line up so quickly to aim to educate people on the subject. Educating the
take part in the project even before it began? Many were authorities will be no less important. Why? Because, as
getting an acre of land for the first time. Earlier, jobs were Fudku Tandi told me: The officer came from Bhubaneswar
hard to come by in Nuapada. Now, work opportunities and announced the closure of Samanwita after three
seemed to be on offer. And for the first time ever, the
8 Everybody Loves a Good Drought Still Crazy After All These Years 9
years. He said, “Now we have to go and do the same thing The CAG test audit’ was on the Integrated Rural
somewhere else."’ Development Programme (IRDP). Its report listed cases of
‘diversion of funas for other purposes’ (i.e., schemes not
connected with the IRDP) in excess of Rs. 16 crores. Of this, Rs.3
crores had gone to BAIF. That money, the CAG noted, went in
‘opening 250 artificial insemination centres that did not work for
weaker sections of the community’. This was for the period
between 1978-79 and 1980-81.
Quite a few projects of this sort are still on in the country
today. In some cases, the same agencies involved in the Khariar
tragedy are major participants.
Ilast went to Nuapada in May-June 1995. Pradhan and his
friends had managed to find a couple of young Khariar studs from
outside the zone of disaster. People in the villages where they
are kept feed and look after the bulls. It’s a great start, but much
work and many expenses lie ahead.
One of the last remaining Khariar bulls, photographed in the Sunabeda plateau,
—
outside the zone of disaster. A species rendered virtually extinct with the best of
intentions*
Postscript
Even as the Samanwita project was on, some of those involved

were strenuously pursuing their vision in other parts of the
country as well. On a large scale, too. Take, for instance, the
Bharatiya Agro Industries Foundation (BAIF) which finds a
special mention in a 1983-84 lest audit’ of the Comptroller and
Auditor General (CAG) of India.
Still Crazy After AU These Years 11
under the Pahadi Korwa project that Ramdas’s road came

Ramdas Korwa’s road to nowhere up.
There was just one small problem about building the
Pahadi Korwa Marg in Rachketha. The village is almost
completely devoid of Pahadi Korwas. Ramdas’s family is
the only real exception.
WADROFFNAGAR, Surguja (M.P.J: Somehow, Ramdas ‘Since substantial funding is allocated for tribal
Korwa was not overjoyed to learn that he was worth development,’ says a local NGO activist, ‘a lot of projects
Rs. 1 7 .44 lakhs to the government. ‘I had no idea at all that have to be justified as being beneficial to tribals. That’s the
they were building a road worth that much in my name,’ way to get the funds released. It doesn’t matter if these
he says to me at his house in Rachketha village. don’t benefit them in the least and are completely useless.
A road built in the name of a single adivasi and his Out here, even if you put up a swimming pool and a
family? This is Wadroflnagar, widely considered Surguja bungalow, you do it in the name of tribal development.’
district’s most backward block. Late in 1993, the Carried away by their zeal to get those funds released,
authorities decided to construct a three-kilometre road nobody bothered to check whether there were really any
leading to Rachketha village here. Pahadi Korwas living in Rachketha village. Apart from
They did this in thename of tribal development Ramdas's family, only two other Korwa families live
'Korwa Development Project—road construction: Length 3 anywhere in the vicinity. But they are at least twenty
km; approx, cost Rs. 17.44 lakhs’ read the board proudly kilometres away from the road.
,
put up at the edge of the Rachketha woods in January Secondly, ‘there was already a kutcha road here,* says
1994. Ramavatar Korwa, son of Ramdas. ‘They just added lal
mittl (red earth) to it.’ Even today, after spending Rs. 17.44
Tribals constitute a 55 per cent majority in Surguja,
lakhs, it is not a pucca road. ‘They succeeded in reducing
one of India's poorest districts. And the Korwas,
a six-metre wide track to 4.5 metres,’ says the NGO
particularly the Pahadi or Hill Korwas. fall in the bottom
activist. ‘And at what cost?’
5 per cent. The Korwas (also found in much smaller
‘Nobody ever spoke to us, no officer even visited us
numbers across the border in Bihar), have been listed as once. They would come down from Ambikapur (the district
a primitive by the government. Special efforts are
tribe
headquarters) and go away,’ says Ramdas. 'But one day I
underway for their development. These often involve large heard in the village about the board. And people jokingly
sums of money. Just one centrally funded scheme, the told me—it’s your road!’
Pahadi Korwa project, is worth Rs.42 crores over a Ramdasis illiterate and could not read the board
five-year period. himself. The crowning irony was that ‘they built it in our
There are around 15,000 Pahadi Korwas, the largest names. But it stops two kilometres short of my house,’
number of these in Surguja. However, for political reasons, says Ramdas. ‘Everybody in the village started talking
the main base of the project is in Raigad district. It was about it. So two months ago, they removed the board
announcing the scheme.’ Almost as an afterthought, Ramdas mentions that his

‘A week later,
another board which said “Pahadi Korwa neighbour, Panditji Madhav Mishra, seized the best nine
Marg’ was also removed by them,' says Ramavatar. But acres of land his family had. 'These were the acres on
not before a local photographer captured the first board which we grew rice.’ With some 400 acres in his control
for posterity. ‘They were embarrassed,’ says the NGO prior to this, Mishra was already in violation of land ceiling
activist, 'because they hadn’t checked. Had they done so, laws.
they would have found that Rachketha is a village of Ramdas has almost given up hope of ever getting back
Gonds, not Korwas. These projects are just started for the the land. He does not know that Mishra’s seizure of his
money they bring, not for the Korwas or anyone else.' land is in complete violation of the law. (The latter’s excuse
He has a point: a late- 1991 survey shows that barring is that he had helped the family when Ramdas's father was
Ramdas's family, all the 249 households in the village are ill and that the tribal owes him money.)
those of Gond tribals. Roads and development are a Section 170-B of the Madhya Pradesh land revenue
sensitive issue in Surguja. Even the district collector, R.K. code forbids the transfer or alienation of adivasi land. But
Goyal, roads and communications as ‘our number
lists the local officials are with Mishra. ‘I gave the patwari
one problem’. This district is bigger in physical terms than Rs.500 to get back the land, but he wants Rs.5,000 more.
the states of Delhi, Goa and Nagaland combined. Yet, it Where can I find that money?’ asks Ramdas.
has just a fraction of those states's road networks. Now, the nine-member family ekes out a living on 5.80
‘Ramdas Korwa’s road’ cost over Rs.17 lakhs. Official acres. That, too, on a much lower grade of land. Ramdas’s
sources confirm, though, that the forest department has experience, says one official in Bhopal, ‘shows the distance
laid much longer stretches of roads at far lower cost. So, between planners and beneficiaries. Ramdas’s problems
while there is an emphasis in theory on roads and were land-grab and his broken well. The government’s
development, the reality is different. The more immediate problem was “fulfilling a target”. For the officials and the
problems of the district’s poor go unattended. contractors who come into such deals, it was a straight
Ramdas’s own demands are touchingly simple. ‘All I loot and grab sortie.
want is a little water,' he says. ‘How can we have ‘This becomes easier because of the so-called "area
agriculture without water?’ When repeatedly pressed, he development approach” which has failed miserably in
adds: ’Instead of spending Rs. 1 7.44 lakhs on that road, if relation to these tribal groups. It has largely amounted to
they had spent a few thousand on improving that damaged handing over the area and its allocated funds to private
well on my land, wouldn’t that have been better? Some contractors. They, in turn, are often frontmen for local
improvement in the land is also necessary, but let them officials and other vested interests. The process excludes
start by giving us a little water.’ the villagers themselves from any decision-making.
His fellow villagers would largely concur. Rachketha Serious auditing of expenditures in these way-out areas
has 4,998. 1 1 acres of cultivable land on revenue record. is rare.’
Of these just thirteen acres, or a mere 0.26 per cent, come The mockingly calculates the possible uses of
official
under irrigation. all the funds now spent in the name of the Pahadi Korwas.
‘Ifthe money were simply put into bank fixed deposits,

none of these families would ever have to work again. The
interest alone would make them very well off by Surguja’s What’s in a name? Ask the Dhuruas!
standards.’
Meanwhile, the rip-offs continue. While we are in
Rachketha, a local advocate tells the NGO activist: ‘In this
year’s drought, all I did was sub-contract one small dam.
I bought a scooter. If there’s a drought next year, I
shall MALKANGIRI Majhi Dhurua had just learned a
(Orissa):
buy a new jeep.' strange bureaucratic truth. ‘Yes,’ said the petty official he
Nobody thought of asking Ramdas what he really was meeting. The record does show you are an adivasi.
needed, what his problems were, or involving him m their
But your brother is not one.'
solution. Instead, in his name, they built a road he does That was a hard one to figure out for Majhi, a member
not use, at a cost of Rs. 17.44 lakhs. ‘Please do something of the Dhurua tribe in Malkangiri. He insisted that if he
about my water problem, sir,’ says Ramdas Korwa as we was a tribal, so was his own brother. ‘How can I explain
set off across the plain, journeying two kilometres to reach anything to you? You can barely read or write,’ said the
his road to nowhere. official, fed up with the argument.
The Dhurua, an adivasi community here, have lost
benefits due to them as a tribal group because of what
seems a spelling mistake in the official list of scheduled
tribes. Either that, or because of a dispute over how the
tribe’s name ought to be spelt.
When Majhi Dhurua first told me this, it seemed
impossible. But it wasn’t.
We looked at two documents. The first was the official
list of scheduled tribes published from Delhi. And the
second, Bhubaneswar’s Basic Data on Scheduled Castes
and Scheduled Tribes of Orissa. Both record the adivasi
group as Dharua. The tribals, however, call themselves
Dhurua. (The local records, too, call them Dhurua.) That
single bureaucratic error at the top, the substitution of a
‘u* by an
‘a’, robbed the tribe of its benefits.
‘We cannot recognise your brother as an adivasi,’ said

the petty official to Majhi. ‘His papers says that he is a
Dhurua. We have no tribe like that on our records. We only
have Dharua.’ Majhi pointed out that his own certificate
—
said Dhurua but he was accepted as a tribal. Then why
not his younger brother? ‘I don’t know about all that,' said The bureaucrats have new tribe!’ says a
created a
the official. ‘Now the rule has changed.’ Those who can see what has
local lodge owner, laughing.
There are less than 9,000 Dhuruas in all. Most live in happened marvel at the havoc caused by one spelling
Malkangiri and Koraput districts. The census, too, seems error. This season the problem became acute, with
to have spelt the word as ’Dharua’. So there were different vacancies announced for some clerical posts in the
spellings at the top and local levels. Yet, this did not pose district. Malkangiri suffers high levels of joblessness, even
a problem for years and the two spellings seem to have by the standards of Orissa. (Orissa has a population of
coexisted. only about thirty- two million, but has nearly 1 .5 milli on
At least they did until some minor officials made an registered unemployed.)
issue of it over a year ago. Caste certificates are very A handful of matriculates among the Dhuruas, says
important for members of SC and ST groups. They need Majhi, were set to try their luck. Only, they didn’t have
them to avail of reservations in employment, or for any. So Chanda, -Mangalu, and Gopal Dhurua, among
admissions to educational institutions. Suddenly, many others, returned frustrated. ‘We were not even
Dhuruas seeking such documents found they were ’not considered as candidates for the vacancies,' says Gopal.
listed’ as a scheduled tribe. That is a pity. The literacy rate for the tribe is less than 7
Many older Dhuruas, such as Majhi, had already per cent. So denying the few educated Dhuruas a chance
obtained caste certificates that are still valid. So this of employment does not help.
created a crazy situation. ‘Officially, my father and I are However, this is a problem that can be sorted out. They
tribals, but my younger brother is not. How can that be?’ are in luck on one count at least: the new tehsildar of
asks Majhi. He gave us a copy of his certificate. It checked Malkangiri, R. K. Patro, is a sensitive and sympathetic
out as genuine. official. Rare traits in his line of work.
I met Majhi and his brother at the main town of Patro has only been around a few months. He took
Malkangiri. Some younger Dhuruas from the Mathili block swift steps when we brought the issue to his notice. After
were trying to convince prospective employers that they consulting the Record of Rights and other sources, he shot
were indeed tribals. But that little difference between an off a letter to the concerned authorities. In this, he clarified
‘a’ and a posed major hurdles. ‘I have shown my own
‘u’ that there was no Dharua tribe in M
alkan giri, only
certificate as proof,’ says a distraught Majhi. ‘But even that Dhurua.
has not been accepted.’ ’What absurd, however,' an official in Bhubaneswar
is
The most authentic source we had access to confirmed told me later, 'is that it needed outside intervention. We
the claim of the tribals. The Record of Rights for Malkangiri have built a system where adivasis can’t get anything set
listed the tribe in entry after entry as Dhurua. Besides, right by themselves. Not through due legal process, at
there were no applications for caste certificates at the least. When problems like these come up, they are
tehsildar’s office under the category of Dharua. That is not helpless. They are unable to access the bureaucracy,
surprising, says an official, since there is really no such unable to assert their rights.’
tribe here. Majhi’s brother and his friends could not get their job
Still Crazy After All These Years 19
they already have over the real tribals ensures this.

done despite being literate youngsters. This, in a district
In the present case, the problem of Majhi Dhurua and
where the general literacy level is around 16 per cent and
his kin could be solved. Thanks, mainly, to a decent official
that among tribals is 4 per cent.
in Malkangiri. But as the Bhubaneswar official says: ‘It
Malkangiri is a mini tribal India. A large number of
was taken up so swiftly when a newspaper intervened.
Orissa’s sixty-two tribal groups find representation here.
Surely then, it could also have been taken up over a year
There is also a spillover from a few tribes from Andhra and
ago, when the tribals themselves raised the issue? But our
Madhya Pradesh. Most groups have their own dialects.
system is not responsive to the poor. Least of all to the
And, says, one official, ‘the scripts of mainline languages
adivasis and harijans.’
suffer many deficiencies in recording the peculiar
pronunciation of tribal speech. That leads to mix-ups like
the present one.'
Curiously, some non-tribals obtain certificates
declaring them as tribals. And they seem to do that without
much difficulty. Such cases often involve Bengali Hindu
settlers from erstwhile East Pakistan. Resettled in
Malkangiri after the 1965 war, they got plots of land from
the state. To these, they hold proper ownership deeds.
It works this way: domicile papers are one requirement
for the issue of caste certificates. Anyone producing a patta

proving that he owns land in the area can get a domicile
document quite easily. This helps a resettled Bengali
Hindu or any other landowner getting his land registered.
He simply tells the deed writer that he belongs to a
particular scheduled caste or tribe.
The deed writer's job is to check the ownership
documents. And those could be quite authentic in these
cases. Checking the caste of the applicant is not part of
—
the deed writer's job. So he issues the deed with the false
caste declaration written into it. After that, the applicant
obtains domicile and caste certificates, using this as the
basis.
Many tribals eitherhold non-patta land or are
landless. So it is much more difficult for them to obtain ""crocosm of tribal India, with many of Orissa’s
these papers. Meanwhile, forward caste people getting 7Z VZ
groups find, nf, representation in the district. Here sixty-two adivasi
a group of adivasis have come
down from the hills to sell their pots at a village haat.
hold of such certificates gain heavily. The educational edge
The
Trickle Up
&
Down
Theory
Or, health for the millions

HE PROBLEM with the plague of 1994, really, was

T unlike so many other diseases, it refused to occur and
remain ‘out there’ in the rural areas. Nor would it confine itself
that
to urban slums. Plague germs are notorious for their

non-observance of class distinctions. Methods are yet to be
devised to prevent their entry into the elite areas of South
Bombay or South Delhi. Worse still, they can board aircraft and
fly club class to New York. Too many of the beautiful people felt
threatened.
That, more than a concern for the many at risk, propelled
the hysterical media coverage of the ‘scourge’. Which, in turn,
gave the world an apocalyptic vision of the BlackDeath mowing

down millions in India. Actually, the plague, or anything else you
want to call it (to each his own bacilli) took fifty-four lives.
Tuberculosis claims over 450,000 Indian lives each year, nearly

eight thousand times as many. It would be lucky to get a couple
of columns in the newspapers yearly. If it does, it’s when the
country's distinguished chest physicians, some of whom treat
newspaper proprietors, hold their annual Congress.
Diarrhoea claims close to 1 .5 million infants each year in this
—
country one every three minutes. That is thirty thousand times
the number of lives lost in the plague. The best it can get by way
of space is when UNICEF’s annual ‘State of the World’s Children
Report’ is Then makes an occasional bow on the
released. it
centre page. Or, one of those anguished editorials (hastily

in
written because the one on the stock exchange didn’t turn up)
asking: ‘Where Have We Gone Wrong?’ After which, it can be
packed away to be used in identical format the following year. If
no Indian has won a beauty contest that season, could even it
make the front page. This establishes that the newspaper has a
caring editor, -who will soon address the Rotary Club on What
Can Be Done For Our Children.
Every fourteen days, over 7.5 million children below the age
of five in this country suffer from diarrhoea. Close to nineteen
million contract acute respiratory infections, including
24 Everybody Loves a Good Drought The Trickle Up & Down Theory 25
pneumonia, in the same 336 hours. Quite a lot can be done for the world with leprosy is an Indian. Every fourth being on the
them, but isn't. Plague makes for better copy, anyway. planet dying of water-borne or water-related diseases is an
In the West, the plague helped reinforce old stereotypes Indian. Of the over sixteen million tuberculosis cases that exist
(What Can You Do With These People?). One London at any time world-wide, 1 2.7 million are in India. Tens of millions
newspaper said the plague was marching ahead as it was of Indians suffer from malnutrition. It lays their systems open to
occurring in a region where millions worship an elephant-headed an array of fatal ailments. Yet, official expenditure on nutrition is
god (Ganesh) who rides a rat. This rendered locals reluctant to less than one per cent of GNP.
kill rats. Besides, there was that supposed risk and courage in But what are the lives of millions compared to the threat
covering the disease. One that had swept across Europe in the posed to 'foreign investments’ by news of the plague. And
thirteenth century but could now be found only in primitive places —
besides a constant obsession of the Indian elite What Will —
like the Third World. There are cases of plague each year in North They (White foreigners) Think of Us? Yet, the only surprising
America and Europe. Usually, where hikers and campers have thing about the plague was that took so long to happen. Few
it
come into contact with the fleas of wild rodents. This was pointed nations have addressed the health needs of their citizens with
out by officials of the World Health Organisation. But it didn’t sit such callousness and contempt.
too well with the story and so was buried on the inside pages. In Never in history have Indian governments spent more than
any case, looking too closely at problems has
India's real health 1.8 per cent of GDP on health. The current figure of public
this catch. It raises troubling questions about the West’s own role spending is 1.3 per cent of GDP. Nicaragua spends 6.7, Brazil
in promoting certain models and enforcing these on developing 2.8 and China 2.1 per cent. Among the advanced industrial
countries via pressure from funding institutions. nations, Sweden spends 7.9 and the United States 5.6 per cent.
In 1992, USAID gave India US $ 325 million (Rs. 800 crores) When newly independent, India committed 5 per cent of the
to be spent solely on population control in the state of Uttar outlay of her first five year plan to health. In a nation emerging
Pradesh. This programme has serious implications. One is that from over a century of colonial rule, exploitation, famines and
hazardous contraceptives like Norplant will be pushed onto very mass deaths from disease, that was and is a vital step. But this
poor rural women who have little or no access to proper health has come down to 1 .7 per cent by the eighth five year plan, falling
care. The same contraceptives are not in general use in any with each successive plan. In terms of health infrastructures,
Western country. countries like China and Sri Lanka are way ahead of India.
Funds are much harder to come by for, say, water-borne As much as 80 per cent of people’s health costs are
diseases which account for nearly 80 per cent of India’s public personally, individually borne. Only 20 per cent of hospital beds
health problems and claim millions of lives each year. These are in rural areas where 80 per cent of Indians live. Across the
include diarrhoea, dysentery, typhoid, cholera and infectious country are thousands of Primary Health Centres (PHCs) and
hepatitis. Water-related diseases, including malaria, take their dispensaries that function largely on paper. Many of these have
toll in tens of thousands of human lives annually. not seen a doctor for months, even years in some cases.
Yet, every third safe and
human being in the world without Yet, India produces more doctors than nurses. It also
adequate water supply is an Indian. Every fourth child on the exports thousands of doctors. There were 381 ,978 registered
globe who dies of diarrhoea is an Indian. Every third person in (allopathic) doctors in India in 1990, but only 111,235 nurses.
Prime Minister Rao said in September 1995 that ‘the country same budget, the top 10 per cent of the population got tax
produces 14,000 doctors but only 8,000 nurses a year’. More concessions worth Rs.4,800 crores. Other health programmes
than a few doctors, having been trained at the expense of the suffered too. This was of a piece with the ‘trickle down theory’.
poorest people in the world, settle abroad to address the ailments (Take it away from the poor, give it to the rich, then watch with
of affluent Americans. So some of the most deprived, bated breath to see how much of it trickles down to the poor.)
disease-ridden people subsidise the health of the richest. What trickled up was money, what trickled down was malaria.
With the coming of Manmohanomics and savage cuts in Still surprised by the plague?
health spending, even the paltry amounts tossed at health have Meanwhile, a big metro like Bombay has seen the birth of
shrunk. So the pressure on the poor has grown. Lack of its fifth “five star’ hospital. In rural India, a family of five members
resources has little to do with it. Maharashtra and Gujarat are the whose annual household income crosses the very modest sum
two states praised for having been at the front line of the of Rs.1 1 ,000 is considered to have risen above the poverty line.
economic 'reforms’. Between August 1 991 and August 1 994, the But a week's occupancy of a room in one of Bombay’s Five Star
two attracted investments worth Rs.1 14,000 crores (almost $ 38 hospitals could cost several times as much. How do ordinary
billion). Yet, these were the states where the plague broke out. Indians then afford health care? How do they cope with their
Even before the reforms began, Gujarat was spending only situation? The PHCs handle only nine out of every hundred
around Rs. 49 per capita on health. (The reform period brought patients treated in rural areas. So how does the public health
more cuts.) The figure for Kerala, a much poorer state than system serve them? How, above all, does it serve the
Gujarat in economic terms, was Rs.71. —
poorest the scheduled tribes and scheduled castes, those with
How the funds for health are used is also important. Again, least access in every sphere?
Kerala scores high. Kerala’s rural infant mortality rate (IMR) is These were some questions tried looking at during months
I
just 1 7. The figure for Gujarat is 73 and that for Maharashtra 69. spent in the poorest districts. The story from Bihar and the two
The average Keralite can expect to live 72 years. For Gujaratis stories from Orissa that follow represent a flavour of that
that figure is 61 years and
Maharashtrians 63. Commitment
for —
experience. It included visiting the PHCs some with a skeletal
to people’s health seems at least as important as availability of level of functioning, some being used as cowsheds, others as
resources. Kerala’s IMR and life expectancy rates are private residences. It meant talking to patients. And trying to
comparable with those of the USA. Kerala is also the only state understand what it meant to be a poor person, in one of these
in the country with more nurses than doctors. areas, and to fall sick.
But Kerala is not India. And as the government further cuts
health spending, public services are collapsing even in urban
areas. Meanwhile, the burgeoning private sector gets ever more
expensive, ever less accountable. Growing dependence on that
sector means bankruptcy for some poor families, and the severity
of government cuts has hastened the process. In the 1992-93
budget, the Union government slashed the National Malaria
Eradication Programme’s funds by nearly 43 per cent. In the
that of a practising doctor. These can be had for a modest

fee.
Dr Biswas gets a taste of Palamau’s The vast majority of the countless quacks in
medicine —
Palamau and the thousands across Bihar don’t bother —
with such pretences. A little experience as a compounder
helps. But, mostly,a board saying ‘doctor’ will do.
Conversations with fifteen quacks revealed an engaging
array of qualifications. Biswas gave me at least three
BARHAMANI, Palamau (Bihar): When the residents of versions of his own. The last was that he had obtained his
Pochra stripped and beat up Dr Biswas and chased him doctor's degree by correspondence from a university in
out of their village, they had reason to be angiy. Biswas, Orissa, the name of which had momentarily slipped his
a quack without any right to the label ‘doctor’, had given mind. His letterhead reads ‘B.A.M.S.’ (Bachelor of
three bottles of glucose saline drip to Chottan Parhaiya’s Ayurvedic Medical Science). But out here, he’s an allopath.
pregnant wife. The woman, close to delivery time and He has little choice. Allopathy is all the rage in
desperately in need of medical attention, died. So did the Palamau and much of rural Bihar. Urban India may have
child. Biswas, however, runs a fairly healthy practice just rediscovered yoga and indigenous medical systems. But
a few villages away. here, hakims, unanis, ayurveds, homoeopaths all have —
Meet Iqbal Qasim, ‘doctor and surgeon’. He is defected to the allopathic school. ‘Some of them,’ says a
proprietor of the ‘Qasimi clinic’ in Balumath. This surgeon police official, ‘have been compounders or doctor’s
has practised for some years on the basis of his extensive assistants for two or three years. All give injections, which
studies in Deoband. There, he acquired a degree they have no right to do.’ Besides, says a senior official,
combining ’botany, biology, zoology, gynaecology and they ‘are accountable to no one, can prescribe anything,
—
unani with a special course in modem allopathic and get away with it’.
medicine’. Just now, that degree is lying in his home town, TB, malaria, diarrhoea, and dysentery affect many in
far away. Qasim gives his patients ampicillin and Palamau. But the cure for almost all ills here is the saline
tetracycline injections at seemingly the slightest drip. In remote areas, quacks mesmerise people with the
provocation. He also does house calls. drip. Even malaria patients are subjected to it. Many
Biswas’s brother is also a ‘doctor’. Taking a diploma villagers believe that paani chadaana (infusion of water) is
in homoeopathy at an institute the name of which he has a mighty cure. So they borrow money to pay the doctor for
regrettably forgotten, he now practises allopathy in the the miracle. And then there are the tetracycline injections.
—
same village as his sibling. He says he is an ‘R.M.P.’ but A bottle of glucose saline costs Rs.28. That’s the retail
that doesn't mean Registered Medical Practitioner. It price. Wholesale, the bottles can be had for Rs. 12 a piece.
stands for ‘Rural Medical Practitioner’. It’s a line in which The kit (tube and needle) costs another Rs.12, retail. But
you can become a doctor, even in Patna, for just Rs.765. quacks use the same kit for very long periods of time,
All it takes is the signature of your village mukhiya and inviting more risks. The quack charges patients Rs. 100 to
the hospital. The chief doctor was on leave. All the others
Rs. 150 per bottle. The literate ones give less. The illiterate
ones give more,’ says Biswas with disarming candour.
—
were running their private practice next door to the
A 30 ml vial of tetracycline costs around Rs.8 to Rs. 10, —
hospital during office hours.
The female worker called a doctor for me to meet. The
retail. From quack obtains fifteen injections of 2
this, the
ml each, charging between Rs.10 and Rs. 15 per shot and
—
doctor came a bit reluctantly she was losing precious
time at private practice. But she did stay long enough to
netting from Rs. 1 50 to Rs.225 on his tiny investment. The
confirm that the hospital's stocks of antibiotics and
needles are dirty, reused often, and invite disaster. Of
life-saving drugs were mostly non-existent. Also, that
course, there are also whole sections of villagers who
anti-snake bite medicines and anti-rabies vaccine (in an
cannot afford this game. Their access to health depends
area where they are sorely needed) were not available. The
on giving the local witch doctor a couple of eggs.
interview over, the doctor went back not to her office, but
Why are the quacks such a force? Why do people go
to her private practice. ‘But they do come here once a
to them in large numbers? ‘Well, look at the state of the
public health system,’ says Dr N.C. Aggarwal, a highly
—
day to recruit patients for their own practice,’ a local NGO
activist told me.
respected doctor of Daltonganj At least a few quacks do
.
In the nearby dalit colony, Dilbasiya Devi and her

the minimal service of handing out anti-malaria
friends said they had never once got a medicine from this
medicines.
hospital. They had to buy everything outside, often at
The public health system is a mess. There is a major
shops owned by or linked to the doctors. A senior district
PHC at Latehar itself and eighteen sub-centres across the
official confirmed this was the general state of affairs.
sub-division. Not one of the four sub -centres I went to was
‘Doctors eind schoolteachers are two lobbies even Chief
functional. Three have had every door, frame and fitting
Minister Laloo Yadav can do nothing about,' he said.
looted by villagers who have gained nothing medically from
Successive chief ministers have failed to end private
them. One, near Ichak, was home to an alcoholic
practice by doctors in the public health system. And the
headmaster eager to sing love songs from the '60s for
doctors can play rough. When senior officials raided the
visitors.
— —
At the main PHC which does work a doctor took houses of some government doctors and found large
quantities of pilfered medicines, a few struck back. They
money, which he is not supposed to. from a patient for the
filed fake charges of rape against the officials.
mandatory malaria test. This, in front of me after I had
‘The public is trapped between these doctors and the
introduced myself as a journalist. None of the sub-centres
had any medicines worth the name left with them. All quacks,' says a senior official. ‘The only hope is for the
useful medicines are pilfered. government to be firm and ban private practice by its
doctors. How can anyone call this a public health system?
The Latehar sub-divisional hospital, the biggest in the
area, has eighteen employees, five doctors, twenty-six
The whole thing is a private industry. So what is its
—
beds and just one patient. The vacant beds look filthy relevance? Even in legitimate terms, Bihar, like most of
the country, has more doctors than nurses (25,689
and diseased. Barring the female health worker, not a
single staffer was present during several visits I made to
doctors to 8,883 nurses!). Add to this the thousands of
quacks and see the results. Meanwhile, we continue to

build primary health care centres (over 15,000 in Bihar,
state-wide). That would be good if there was the slightest A dissari comes calling
attempt to see that they functioned. But we have built a
health system for doctors, not patients. For contractors
and pharmacists, not for the public. So, we still have some
of the lowest health standards in the country, despite
MALKANGIRI We had waited nearly three hours
(Orissa):
innumerable complaints and campaigns.' chickens to be slaughtered. They hung upside down
for the
The quacks have little reason to complain, though. from the hand of the medicine man’s assistant. And, in
Business has seldom been better.
the philosophical manner of their kind, still pecked around
for any available food. Meanwhile the two dissaris—
hereditary practitioners of traditional systems of medicine
—
in this region went on with their ancient rituals. There
was one major departure, though. At the end of then-
session, the main dissari, Gobardhan Poojari, could be
giving the patient something quite modem. Like
chloroquine or Flagyl, depending on his diagnosis.
Gobardhan's real name is Hanthal, but he wears the
'Poojari’ label quite proudly. When he said we could join
him on his rounds in the remote Bonda hills, we were
happy. We knew that we were to be witness to something
unusual. Just how unusual, we did not quite realise.
Gobardhan’s techniques combine indigenous and
allopathic medicine. His work here is part of a strategy
aimed at ancient tribes in Malkangiri. The idea is to
persuade them to blend life-saving modern drugs into
their traditional health systems. Dissaris often serve as
village priests, too, and enjoy high respect here, says
Surendra Khemendu of the NGO, Anwesha. Thus, ‘they
greatly influence health beliefs and practices where
modem medicine has not yet made big inroads'. Dissaris
render health services at their own homes and at those of
their patients.
Khemendu himself is studying plant-based
medicines. He says: The traditional dissaris tend to
combine the use of herbs and roots with medico-religious
practices. They are a mine of knowledge that has real cures
for some ailments.’ But there are diseases against which
tribes lik e the Bondas have no protection. So the need to
reach effective cures through an acceptable medium
arises. That medium is the dissarl.
Malkangiri’s energetic collector, G.K. Dhal, is all for
the experiment. His officials are training some dfssarfs.
They are being taught to handle drugs for malaria and
diarrhoea, both major killers here. ‘The dissaris continue
their traditional rituals.’ says Dhal. ‘But, we encourage
them to deliver life-saving drugs at the end of those.'
And so we Eire in the Bonda hills with Gobardhan. He
is a Dom harijan, but is known here as the ‘Bonda Doctor'
on account of his patients. His first aid box has ‘Only For
Bondas’ boldly inscribed on it in English. That is a
language neither he nor any member of his clientele
follows in the slightest degree. But he is proud of the box.
At the river’s edge sits the young patient, rather forlorn. A
second dissarl stands ankle deep in flowing water,
‘Bonda Doctor’ Gobardhan’s first aid box with ‘Only For Bondas’ boldly inscribed
chanting mantras. An assistant holds the unfortunate on it in English, Neither he nor any member of his clientele follows that language
chickens as Gobardhan prepares for the sacrifice. The in the slightest degree. But he is proud of the box. Here, Gobardhan is attending to
the young son of a Bonda warrior.
bright sun isn’t doing anyone much good, especially the
patient. Meanwhile the second dissarl reads his verses from a
There can be little doubt about the value of the palmyra leaf. 'Aam rishi, jaam rishl, naam rishi, kaam
experiment. It does make the hours of trekking through risht . ,’ he
. .intones, breaking off only to inform
the Bonda hills worthwhile. Yet, it can run into Gobardhan that he too is entitled to the mahua wine.
problems — if the trainers have not been thorough, or if
Gobardhan mixes in a few secular oaths along with his
some rituals backfire. Gobardhan is an intelligent man religious ones to tell the second dissari what he thinks of
and on the whole, a useful doctor. But his ritual involves him. But he grudgingly parts with some. The latter then
guzzling large amounts of mahua wine. (The ancients resumes: ‘Yam dhoot, brahm dhoot, karm dhoot We . . .
’
wisely made than part of the

this part of the ritual rather are later to leam that the palmyra leaves are a
payment, tying business with pleasure at no cost to the —
formality he isn't literate. He just knows every word by
dissari .) Four hours into the show, Gobardhan is heart. The patient shifts uneasily as Gobardhan blunders
consuming more evil spirits than he is battling. about with a knife, preparing for the sacrifice. Rather him
than us, think Khemendu and I.
Gobardhan then holds the menacing blade between
answer. Hadi shows us many local remedies. These
the toes of his left foot. As dissari Two reads the verses,
include the root of the mango tree, handa, tulsi, amla,
he beheads one bird by drawing its neck across the blade
chandau, neem, papaya, donger, biguna and many other
and throws it into the river. Moments later, the second
herbs and roots. He also works as a vet when needed. His
follows. The third has its wings sliced off and is then
fee is modest: some rice or chicken, mahua or
allowed to peck at seed—whereupon it stops screaming solabh
liquor.
and proceeds to eat as if nothing has happened. But soon,
He plans to train his
grandson Mangla soon, in what
Gobardhan, having had yet another swig, finds he has left
from the forest, what to use, how to use it and
to collect
the job unfinished. The bird joins its companions in the
when. He has heard of dissaris like Gobardhan but won’t
river. The second dissari thoughtfully picks up all three
accept them. Not until he has seen them prove their worth.
birds from the water a little further downstream. Plans are
Who has trained them and how well?’ he wants to know.
made for dinner, Gobardhan gives no medicine to the
patient and the session ends. As we move off, we learn that
A legitimate question, decide Khemendu and I, recalling
the day spent with Gobardhan. For some ailments,
the patient was Gobardhan’s own son. the
services of Hadi’s fraternity are invaluable in an
Next comes a house call. A tough, if aging, Bonda area
where doctors and hospitals are few or ill-equipped. One
warrior says his son is down with dysentery. As
doctor brought here by a foreign-funded NGO ran away
Gobardhan staggers around waving a strip of tablets, the
after seven days, terrified by the Bondas. He
old man lets flow rich oaths: ‘You drunken pig. Stick to resurfaced
months later as a water management’ adviser to another
your pooja and I'll trust you. Don’t mess with things you
foreign-funded NGO.
can’t handle.’ He seems to sense that Khemendu and I are
Attitudes here are complex. On the one hand are those
from another world. The one where people are presumed
who over-romanticise tribal health systems. These are
to be able to ‘handle’ such things. He gives us the tablets
mostly people who do not subject their own kin to it. On
to check if Gobardhan is treating his son properly.
the other hand are those who dismiss indigenous
Gobardhan has got it right this time. But the old medicine
as absurd. Their mantra is the unthinking peddling
warrior has a point. Words like ‘chloroquine’ and of
some forms of allopathic treatment. Both stands lack
‘paracetamol’ are not easy to handle even for English
balance.
speakers. For a tipsy dissari, mixing mantras with mahua,
The romanticists can’t say why adivasi children
they can be tricky and harmful if interchanged. Clearly,
should not get the same medical facilities that children
the trainers in this project have to be very careful. Between
elsewhere do. Nor why, if tribal medical systems are
what they think they are imparting, and what Gobardhan so
complete, must adivasis suffer such high rates of
absorbs, is a complex chemistry. death
from disease and the worst infant mortality levels. The
In the interior, we find the traditional dissaris to be
pushy allopathic camp cares little about preserving
an intelligent lot. Hadi Mandra of Dantipada village has
traditional knowledge of real value.
never seen the world outside of the Bonda hills. Yet,
Perhaps commerce intrudes. Traditional medicine’—
whether for snake bite or fractures or fever, he has an
—
as redefined by urban elites is now a huge industiy.
The
global herbal remedy market alone was worth close to Malaria for all by 2000?
Rs. 20,000 crores in 1993. Oddly, the reverse is unfolding
in much of rural India, There, no villager seems to feel
cured unless put on drip, or given an injection. This craze
for allopathy has given rise to massive quackery. In the
context of these extremes, the ‘Bonda doctor* idea has NUAPADA & MALKANGIRI (Orissa): When people began
great potential. But, working under grave limitations, the dying of malaria in Birighat village of Nuapada district in
risks it runs are many. 1992-93, Ghanshyam Bithria knew it was time for him
and his friends to start recording the deaths. If they did
not, no one would. They logged at least seventeen malaria
deaths in this Khariar block village. Five others joined the
lethal list in January 1994. None of this finds any
reflection in the register of deaths at the local Primary
Health Centre (PHC).
In nearby Kusmal village, six persons died of malaria
in December 1993 and January 1994. The previous year's
list was as long as that of Birighat. In Khalna, Bihari Lai
Sunani, who had done a survey, told me, ‘More than 40
per cent of this village had malaria in January-February.
It was worse after the monsoon last year.’ In the desolate
Bhoden block, Ghasiram Majhi, sarpanch of Bhaisadani,

echoed this. ‘At one point, just after the monsoon,’ he said,
‘there were four to five people with malaria in each
household.’
Malkangiri plays host to all the four known malaria
parasites in the world. That includes Plasmodium
Jaldparum which causes cerebral malaria. Earlier, it had
been assumed that India was home to only three of the
parasites. Both Malkangiri and Nuapada are in western
Orissa, where malaria has staged a major comeback. They
are the worst off districts of that state and are home to
some of the poorest people in this country. Those people,
though, have some ideas about why it’s happening.
’Our villages have not been sprayed for three to four
years in some cases,’ said Ghanshyam Bithria, who leads

Ghanshyam Bithria had his own son admitted to the
the Paschim Orissa Krishijeevi Sangha. ‘Medicines, when
government hospital at Khariar in October 1993 with high
they are there at all, are not fully effective. The doctors are
fever. ‘For four days, his temperature would not come
only active when it comes to family planning programmes.
down,’ said Ghanshyam. ‘When I asked the doctor why he
Right now, there are more than thirty malaria patients in
was not giving him any treatment, he shouted at me, “You
Birighat. But no money is being spent on fighting it.’ In
are a father and you know nothing. What can I do?” Then
some places, village health guides [VHGs) had not been
other patients explained to me that I had to pay something.
paid the Rs.50 due to them for many months.
So I gave the doctor twenty rupees and he gave my son an
‘The malaria worker for our panchayat was transferred
injection. The temperature came down and he was
twenty months ago,’ said the sarpanch of Bhaisadani. ‘No
discharged a day later.’
one has replaced him. Generally, there seems to be no
In different villages, people said that those visiting the
money.' Some PHC officials in both districts felt there had
PHCs would be told to go to the doctor’s house (also in the
been major spending cuts in the battle against malaria the
PHC compound). ‘There,’ said one sarpanch, ‘the doctor
previous year. ‘There have been awful shortages of
runs a private practice and extracts money. This happens
chloroquine at crucial moments,’ said one doctor.
in the working hours of the PHC.’ Orissa state has not
They were not too far off the mark. The ‘austerity’
banned private practice by government doctors. The
imposed by the new economic policies saw a crushing 43
government, instead, gives them an incentive to be
per cent cut in the National Malaria Eradication
Programme (NMEP) in the 1992-93 budget. The results
—
honest a ‘non-practising allowance’ for sticking strictly
to their assigned PHC work. ‘But they have it both ways,’
were dramatic.
said Jagdish Pradhan of the Paschim Orissa Krishijeevi
Dr Sujatha Rao summed it up in a paper for the Sangha. ‘They take this allowance and practise privately
Foundation for Research in Community Health, Bombay.
as well, using the PHC premises itself.’
As she put it: ‘Several states have reported a setback in
Even in the mid-’80s, 13.6 per cent of Orissa’s
the programme for lack of central funds. In fact, the
malaria eradication programme is the source of funding
—
population was affected by malaria double that of
Maharashtra’s. Yet, the state’s per capita expenditure on
for the multipurpose worker who is responsible for many
vertical disease control programmes at the village level.
—
disease programmes was Rs.3.41 less than half that of
Maharashtra’s. In other words, Orissa's problem was twice
Thus, a cut in the NMEP funds is bound to have
that of the other state. But its spending on that problem
repercussions on other programmes as well.’ It has. At
was less than half that of Maharashtra's. In 1 99 1 -92 came
least eight persons died of dysentery in 1993 in Sialoti
the era of ‘austerity’. With cutbacks and a decline in
village. There were no multipurpose workers around to
quality of services, those figures went out of hand the next
help. Both in Orissa and nationally, the incidence of
year.
malaria, particularly of cerebral malaria, is highest in the
Besides, in Nuapada district, newly carved out from
tribal areas.
old Kalahandi and the poorest part of that infamous
Few expect any help from the public health system.
region, there are other troubles. Official data show that
twenty-six of fifty-four posts of doctors are lying vacant. on dying of ‘old age’ and ‘causes not known' in Nuapada
There are also ten posts of nurses and pharmacists yet to and Malkangiri: ‘Say, a person falls ill on Day One. On Day
be filled. Five, the local health worker may visit his or her village.
In 1993-94, some spending levels were restored, but There are often huge distances involved. On Day Six, a test
the damage was done. Meanwhile, the World Bank, having is taken and the slides sent to the PHC by Day Seven, if
first pushed for austerity, now took credit for restoring lucky. The overburdened lab technician will take a week
spending levels. In real terms, though, the stagnation to study the slides. On Day Fifteen, if the case tests
continues. But the extent of damage may never be fully positive, it goes back to the health worker and a further
gauged. delay of two or three days occurs. Then the health worker
Why? Because official data tell us very little.Figures collects the medicines and may take three days to touch
at the PHCs and those of the Mission Hospital in Khariar that village. That means a gap of around twenty-one days
vary sharply. At the latter, Dr Ajit Singh showed us over before the affected person gets treatment. This not only
twenty mosquito-related deaths on his register in 1993. devastates the individual, it also means a mosquito can
‘We had as many as fifty-two cases of cerebral malaria in meanwhile take the parasite from the affected person and
1993,’ he said. There would be at least ten ordinary spread it to others.’
malaria cases for each cerebral malaria case. This means The steep cuts budget saw many
in the anti-malaria
m m
we treated a in i mu of 570 malaria cases last year.* Yet, malaria workers or village health guides drop out. Even
Nuapada’s five PHCs and forty-two subsidiary health the petty sum of Rs.50 was not paid to them. Their
centres do not reflect these figures or anything like them. numbers have fallen even as the disease is on the rise. So
In the register at the Khariar PHC there were just three each malaria worker may now have to cover far more
deaths attributed to cerebral malaria in six months. villages than the usual five allotted to him. This increases
However, there were 216 deaths listed as ‘Cause Not the duration of suffering of the patients. As the frustrated
Known’ and eighty-seven listed as having died of ‘old age'. local doctor put it: ’If this sort of medicine shortage,
Over 95 per cent of deaths had not been medically funding cuts and logistical system keeps up, we could have
certified. Over 90 per cent had received no medical not Health but Malaria For All by 2000.’
attention. Some who died of ‘old age’ appear to have been
in their fifties and ‘old age’ deaths were concentrated in
particular months. In June 1993, before the rains, there Postscript
was not a single death from old age. In December, there
were twenty-one. Some of the deaths were in Kusmal and Reactions to the story after it came out in the Times of India ran
Birighat villages, the very ones where locals complained of true to the official pattern. After questions came up in Parliament,
alarming levels of malaria. The very fact that the ‘old age’ two teams visited the Khariar region, focusing on the Birighat
deaths occurred mostly after the rains suggests that area. One of these was a medical team from Delhi. The other
several of these may have been caused by malaria. was from Bhubaneswar. And one of the first things to happen
A disgusted local doctor explained why people will go was this: the people in the PHCs there got hauled up for talking
This Is
me and ‘leaking’ stuff from the records.
the Way
to
On what grounds they could have denied me access to
public data, do not know. But the bosses ticked them off. What
I
the teams that went to Birighat wanted to learn also remains

hazy. Locals say that the only persons they spoke to were the
—
health guides who, for once, showed up. Maybe they thought
the Rs.50 owed to them for so many months had come in. The
We Go
teams ignored the villagers themselves. They, however, took
some blood slides. Perhaps they felt the story would fall apart
with the results. The reality, says Kapil Narain Tiwari, Kalahandi’s
to School
most active political figure, was sadly different. They found things
far worse than when had first been there.
I
On the plus side, the outcry that had followed the story had
some results. Lots of medicines landed up at the PHCs in Khariar
and nearby areas. could see this when went back to Nuapada
I I
in May 1 995. A few of the vacant posts of doctors had also been
filled up.
Yet, as far asknow, neither team put out a report. No word
I
of the original storywas challenged. Other journals had picked

it up too. Worse, similar reports soon began
to come out of
Rajasthan and other places. In tribal areas of the rich state of
Maharashtra, the problem has gained awful proportions. Malaria
is back in a big way. And back due to the folly and callousness
of policies breaking down even the little access that millions of

Indians have to health.
Getting educated in rural India

6 ’-"'vNLY THREE stories in the section on education? That’s

yît?’ asked a friend.
There could have been a little bit more on education in this
section had there been a little bit more of education in the places
I went to.
Actually, over thirty of the reports filed for the Times of India
I
did mention primary schools in the poorest districts. Mostly they

referred to schools without teachers. Or schools without
teaching. Or schools with no students. Or, simply, to their being
no schools at all. Many of those references remain in the reports
in this book. But it seemed wise to focus in detail on three that
carry a flavour of the education India gives her people.

Of every hundred children of school-going age in this
country, around seventy enrol into Class I. Half of these drop out
even before they complete primary school. Less than ten of the
remaining thirty-five may cross Class VIII Finally, fewer than five
.
finish high school. As Dr Anita Rampal of the Bhopal-based NGO,

Eklavaya, puts it, this seems to indicate that ‘the average
“efficiency” of our massive school system is less than 5 per cent’.
Much less. Drop-out rates render parts of the enrolment
figures worthless. Census data tell us that less than half of India’s
179 million children in the 6-1 4 age group attend school. Of over
130 million rural children in this age group, 57 per cent are not
in school. Only about a third of girls in the 6-1 1 age group go to
school.
Quite a few rural children have a tough time reaching their
schools. Existing data do not capture that reality. Take the Fifth
All-India Educational Survey (1989) of the National Council for
Educational Research and Training (NCERT). It found that 94
per cent of the rural population was ‘served’ by a primary school
within one kilometre. Better still, 85 per cent had a middle school
within three kilometres.
Sounds okay. Until you see the terrain, the schools and the
hardship involved in getting to them many
areas. What the
in
experts consider a ‘walking distance’ ignores these factors.
48 Everybody Loves a Good Drought This Is the Way We Go to School 49
More than 60 per cent of primary schools in India have only Cutting funds and calculated neglect hit the poorest and the
one teacher, or at best two, to take care of all five classes (I - V). weakest. Those at the bottom get weeded out in the very early
Most of these are in rural areas. They lack even the minimal stages of schooling. none estimate, over 40 per cent of children
I
facilities takes to run a school. The NCERT’s Fifth Survey found

it who drop out cite economic reasons for doing so. Within the less
that of 5.29 iakh primary schools, well over half had no drinking privileged are more divisions.
water facilities. Close to 85 per cent had no toilets. As many as Far more girls drop out than boys. Boys in school outnumber
71 ,000 had no buildings at all, pucca or kutcha. Many others had girls by one and a half times. In rural areas, the disparities are
‘buildings’ of abysmal quality. much worse. As Dr Anil Sadgopal, an NGO activist, points out,
In many parts of rural Godda and Palamau in Bihar, are there are 1 23 districts in India where rural female literacy is less
schools that are being used to store grain or house cattle. There than 10 percent. The national female literacy rate is roughly 40
are also schools that have not seen teachers in years. The Fifth per cent.
Survey found there were 2,628 primary schools in the country The gap between SC/ ST literacy levels and those of
actual
with no teachers at all. the non-SC/ ST population grew worse between 1961 and 1981
Article 45 of the constitution calls on the state to provide ‘free The all-India figure for literacy among dalit women is 1 0.9 per
and compulsory education for all children until they complete the cent. For tribal women it’s 8 per cent. Teachers from SC/ ST
age of fourteen'. It wanted that done within ten years of the groups are few. In many districts, such groups make up large
adoption of our constitution. In reality, the state has steadily chunks of the population. But that seldom reflects in their
abdicated its duty towards children. numbers among schoolteachers.
The share of education in our five year plan outlays has been True, many of the rural poor don't go anywhere near the
falling.Those who led the country to freedom had a different schools set up for them. In some areas, that is a discerning
vision. They wanted that a free India spend no less than
10 per
judgement on the worth of what's being offered to them. Contrary
cent of plan outlay on education. Free India honoured that vision to what the elite would like to believe, the poor do want to send
only in its breach. their children to school. Yet, schools aside, even the institutions
The year plan gave education 7.86 per cent of its
first five of higher learning in SC/ ST areas are less than a joke.
total outlay. The second plan lowered it to 5.83 per cent. By the Denying the poor access knowledge goes back a long
to
fifth plan, education was making do with
3.27 per cent of the way. The ancient Smriti political and legal system drew up vicious
outlay. In the seventh plan, the figure was 3.5 per cent. As the punishments for sudras seeking learning. (In those days, that
problems of her children’s education grew more, India spent less meant learning the Vedas.) If a sudra listens to the Vedas, said
and less on them. one of these laws, ‘his ears are to be filled with molten tin or lac.
Even if you take both central and state government spending If he dares to recite the Vedic texts, his body is to be split'. That
together, it does not get better. Current spending on education was the fate of the ‘base-born’. The ancients restricted learning
in Indianot more than 3.5 per cent of GDP. The Centre itself
is on the basis of birth.
concedes that the minimum should be 6 per cent. Tanzania a modern polity, where the base-born have votes, the elite
In
spends 4.3, Kenya 6.7, and Malaysia 7.8 per cent of GDP on Say all the right things. But deny access.
act differently.
education. Sometimes, mass pressures force concessions. Bend a little
literate.
After a while, back to business as usual. As one writer has
it’s
As Professors Amartya Sen and Jean Dreze point out:
put it: When the poor get literate and educated, the rich lose their
much lower than in China. They are
‘Literacy rates in India are
palanquin bearers.
lower than literacy rates in many east and south-east Asian
So dalits and adivasis still have it worst. Fewer SC/ST
countries at the time of their rapid economic expansion thirty
students are enrolled in the first place. Next, their drop-out rates
years or so ago. They are lower than the average literacy rates
are higher. Ofnon-SC/ST students, nearly sixty of every hunderd
forlow income countries other than China and India. And also
enrolled drop out in classes VI - VIII. For dalits, that figure is
lower than estimated literacy rates sub-Saharan Africa.’
in
seventy and for tribals, eighty. So those most needing an
But the Indian state has had other questions on its mind for
education are largely filtered out by class VIII.
But we can hear all the right things being said. In the recent
some time. Such as, how to pass the buck on education. How to
jettison that duty. This has spawned one of the great rackets of
past, governments have spoken with passion of promoting
our time. In polite company, we call it Non-Formal Education
literacy. We have a National Literacy Mission to show for it. While
(NFE). Always around in some guise, it gained great strength
many of its aims and deeds deserve your support, there’s a
with the ‘New Education Policy’(NEP) of 1 985. At that point, the
sleight of hand involved here. For a government trying to dump
government even said twenty-five million children would come
its duties towards its children, literacy has another goal. You can,
under NFE schemes.
over time, peddle it as a substitute for education.
In this vision, trained, full-time teachers would be done away
Making a virtue of literacy is one thing. Making it a tool to
further reduce government involvement in education is another.
—
with saving 95 per cent of the costs. Untrained ‘instructors’
would replace them. Schools were not essential, either.
In making people literate, the government is not doing them a
Ill-equipped ‘centres’ would do. In practice, working hours vary
favour. Nor is it doing them one in sending children to school. It
from two to zero. There are over 2.5 lakh NFE centres in India.
is merely pursuing a duty —
and very badly at that. Literacy is a
They exist, says Dr Rampai, as ‘a distinctly second-rate option.
vital social tool. It is not an education.
The movement has scored great successes Even more dismal than the rural primary school’.
literacy in parts
ofthe country. Often, it has done this in the face of official barriers.
As she points out, there are 35,000 such centres in Madhya
Pradesh. Here, of the seven lakh children enrolled, only 5 per
Its moments have eome when people in target areas have
best
cent of boys and 3 per cent of girls passed the class V exam.
shaped it to their own reality, their own needs. That usually
frightens governments. Make women literate and they picket
The elite are silent on why things can’t be changed by
asserting people’s rights. If what’s in the classroom is not
alcohol shops. It’s nice to have the girls read and write. Having
them rock the basis of, say, Tamil Nadu politics, is not the idea.
‘relevant’ to the lives of millions of Indians, why not make it
Where has connected with people’s lives, the

literacy
relevant? Why destroy the classroom? The hidden text to NFE
attendance in schools has actually gone up. Pudukkottai in Tamil

and its variants was and is:universal education is no longer a
Nadu is a good example. So literacy contributes to the goal. All children do not have the same rights to a decent
education. That is now, clearly, the line of the Indian elite as a
educational process. Yet, it cannot replace it. And, no matter how
whole.
big the successes in some areas, you still have to look at the final
balance sheet. It’s sobering. Just 52 per cent of Indians are It is possible there have been a couple of ’model’ NFE
schemes. Everybody seems to know of one. Yet, few show any Our present level of funding in education is absurd. There
verifiable results. NFE creates a clear-cut caste system in
is little chance of doing better without directing at least 6 per cent
education. One type of schooling for the children of the poor, of GDP towards it. Talking about the south-east Asian Tigers’ as
another for the rich. It’s instructive that all those who plug, plan, a model has a good deal of hypocrisy built into anyway. The it
and get paid to run NFE went through a formal system. Their own more so for a nation committed to democracy. In the field of
children mostly go to very, very formal schools. education, it’s worse. India is not willing to commit anything like
It’s been a lucrative scam. Whole lobbies have received
the funds those nations did for schooling.
crores of rupees over years to take education to the poor. Mass illiteracy and lack of education hurt in other ways too.
Results: zero. If NFE was such a wonderful, radical concept, why They mean India's most basic capabilities will remain stunted.
not scrap all the schools there are and subject all children to it?
—
So economic development will has to suffer. No major —
That would hurt the beautiful people. reforms will last that do not go with basic change in this area.
What happens to such funds as there are for education in What is the choice before India? As John Galbraith once
the formal school system? Dr K. Seetha Prabhu of the Bombay said: ‘There is no literate population that is poor; no illiterate
University’s Economics department points to a curious fact: a population that is other than poor.’
large number of schools in India are privately owned. Theirfunds,
though, come from the public. As much as 60 per cent of
government expenses on schools goes in grants to privately
owned institutions, in fourteen major Indian states, education
claims 32 per cent of all subsidies on social services. Much less
than half of this is spent on primary education. Paucity of funds
does not seem to cripple institutions of higher learning run by and
for the elite.
Few areas have suffered so many ridiculous experiments
as education. Many of these continue, though almost everyone
really knows the truth. The government surely does: there are
some basics without which all the tinkering in the world remains
a farce. Among these, fora start, is making elementary education
universal. Every child, rural or urban, has a right to it.
There’s more. If education were not only free but also
compulsory, right up to the end of the secondary level, that would
very hard at child labour. And that is a practice that harms
strike
India asa whole in many ways, You can’t even begin to solve
many vital national problems without weeding out child labour.
Education, unemployment and the setting up of a national
minimum wage for adults are just three of them.
against them. The cases are still pending.

There’s no place like school In Nunmatti village, near Godda town, which has a
—
large colony of Kahars poorest of the poor a black goat —
proves to be the solitary scholar in the primary school
building. Two others sit patiently on the window sills. Not
a single Kahar child here goes to school though two of them
GODDA {Bihar}: The middle school at Damruhaat here had are ‘registered’.
a unique student-teacher-resources ratio till recently. It In Seedapada, the foundation of a school laid in 1989
had eight classes, seven teachers, four students, two is covered over by dense foliage. In the government’s book,
classrooms and one broken chair. says Motilal, a local political activist, this is a working
The chair, reserved for the headmaster, is vacant, its school. Godda, one of India’s poorest districts, has 1 ,063
occupant having been suspended on charges of primary schools with 2,887 teachers. Of course, some of
embezzlement. Middle school headmasters look after the
disbursal of teachers’ salaries in a given area. An outraged
deputy commissioner, finding this one disbursing them to
non-existent teachers, tossed him out.
Two other teachers were transferred. The school now
has four teachers and a maximum attendance of about
ten to twelve students (of around seventy-five registered).
At one point, just two students were attending. 'Even in
private tuition,’ says Prof. Suman Daradhiyar of Godda
College, ‘this doesn't happen —two teachers to one
student!’
Things are worse in the tribal villages. In Adro, deep
in the hilly areas of Boarijor block, the schoolmaster,
Shyam Sunder Malto, has not shown up for two years. It
takes us a fourteen-kilometre walk across awkward
terrain to reach the school, now being used to stock tendu
leaves and com.
Malto left two years ago, taking the attendance
registers with him. ‘These he keeps marking at his house
in Ratanpur and goes on collecting his salary,’ says
Madhusingh, a Paharia tribal of Tethrigodda. When angry
villagers, led by Madhusingh, went to scold him, Malto had A black goat proved to be the solitary scholar at the primary school building in
cases of attempted murder, assault and battery filed Nunmatti village, Godda* Two others were sitting patiently in the window sills The .
basic reality of the education system in the district is that there isn’t one .
these do function. But the basic reality of the education commitment, and the absence of a system of compulsory
system in the district is that there isn't one. Certainly not primary education that gives the children free meals and
a system that works. books. In tribal Godda, the tough terrain adds to the
In many Paharia villages, not a single child goes to problem.
school. Some, though, are ‘registered’. In remote Dorio in Further, some primary schoolteachers, earning over
the Sunderpahari block, we survey the seventy-nine —
Rs. 2,500 a month a good sum in these parts have —
—
households of the village considered relatively advanced. taken to moneylending. But even the well-meaning ones
We find that of 303 individuals, eleven can just about sign can find themselves defeated. Randhir Kumar Pandey, a
their names. The village boasts one matriculate, Chandu man of Gandhian principles, is a teacher at the Goradih
—
Paharia jobless since achieving that status several years primary school. He goes around pleading with parents to
ago. send their children to school. ‘I tell them, if t/iis generation
Dorio has just one child enrolled at school and he isn’t does not get educated, you are finished. But,’ he says, ’they
attending it. The boy’s headmaster rushes to the village simply can’t afford it.’ Pandey sometimes spends his own
soon after we show up. He is anxious, having heard that money on pencils, notebooks or slates to persuade
‘someone looking like a government official' (an students to attend.
unflattering description of me) is camping there. Teachers too, says Pandey, can sometimes be at risk
‘I love this boy and want him at school. But these in these remote areas. Three died of kala azar in 1991.
people don’t encourage him,' says the headmaster, Those with good connections get the transfers they want.
Parshuram Singh, passing the buck. Having satisfied Others can get stuck twenty-five, thirty years in such
himself that I am neither the deputy commissioner nor his places.’ Transfers needed to discipline the teachers and
agent, he soon leaves. The villagers says this is the first clean out the system don't take place for another reason.
time they are seeing their headmaster in many months. It State-wide, the teachers' unions are too powerful and have
seems the younger generation in this village could end up often scuttled the process of genuine transfers. Not a
being less educated than the older one. single government in recent years has dared take them on.
‘Many teachers here,’ says a top district official, ‘Since teachers count the ballots in the elections, political
‘always keep a casual leave slip ready. And keep it parties fear them,’ says a district official, laughing.
undated. If an inspection takes place, they fill in that date Besides, Pandey admits, attendance in itself doesn’t
to explain their absence!’ mean too much: ‘Many students clock in only after 12
With an estimated female literacy rate of less than 5 noon, after tending cattle, goats or pigs or doing other
per cent among tribals, the situation here is getting household chores. Then they have to leave early so they
desperate. In many Paharia villages, the few children going can reach their remote villages before dark.’ Is there no
to school are all male. And while teachers here deserve way out, especially for the extremely backward Paharia
much of the criticism levelled at them, that simply doesn’t tribals?
explain the collapse of the system. What does? Acute Actually, there There are seven ‘residential schools’
is.
poverty, certainly. Also, lack of governmental run for tribals by the welfare department, and these work.
In sharp contrast to the regular schools, these give There are other interesting signs. The Bihar chief
students food, clothes, board and books free of charge. minister, Laloo Prasad Yadav, says he is fed up with an
Attendance is far better here and student performance educational system on which the state spends Rs. 1,700
relatively outstanding. crores each year to get such poor results. He has begun
Pramod Kumar Paharia is a bright, articulate student competitive exams for selecting primaiy schoolteachers.
at the intermediate level in Godda College. As many as And UNICEF, convinced that Bihar needs more than most
nineteen students from the Bhanji residential school he other has made it ’the thrust area’ of its
states,
went to reached the same level last year. ‘Six others,’ he programmes. Let’s hope residential schools and mid-day
says, ‘have made it to various degree courses. One is in meals are among those programmes.
his final year in the English (Honours) course at Patna Then maybe one day there will be more students than
University.’ teachers at the Damruhaat school.
Pramod is want education.
clear that ‘the Paharias
They just can’t The residential
afford the present system.
schools made a huge difference for those of us lucky to get
in.’ Why? ‘Above all,’ says Prof. Suman Daradhiyar, ‘it is
the economic support system of the residential school. It
involves the mid-day meal plus more.’ Giridhar Mathur of
the Santhal Paharia Seva Mandal, who has worked with
the tribe for fourteen years, agrees. He says there is a need
for ‘a residential school for girls in the Sundarpahari block.
Now, all three schools here are for boys.'
Randhir Pandey wants every three or four primary
schools merged into one residential school where food,
clothes and books are free. Even Bimal Kant Ram, the one
teacher from the notorious Damruhaat school I have been
able to trace, holds this view. Most teachers agree that the
Paharias, given a fair chance, do quite well as students.
‘They show an aptitude for languages,’ says Pandey.
Some teachers have heard of Tamil Nadu’s mid-day
meal scheme. They believe that that model, and much
more, is needed. Residential schools combining these
features clearly hold the key in the local context. Much
still has be understood about why residential schools,
to
despite serious drawbacks, make a difference. But the fact
is that they do.
lecturers to places they don't want to go.

The Head of Departments More than anything, they want the postgraduate
departments kept open. In promotions, eight years of
teaching at the PG level count as equal to twelve years of
teaching at the undergraduate (UG) level. ‘So,’ says one
head of department, ‘if they were teaching in UG courses
ALIRAJPUR, Jhabua {M.P S.C. Jain saub is the principal
only, they would have to wait four years more for
of the Government Postgraduate College in Alirajpur.
He promotion.’
is also in charge of all UGC programmes
in the college. With ten years PG-level teaching, one can aim for a
Besides, he is the head of the Botany department, the
professorship. At the UG level that would call for fifteen
Physics department and the Law department. In past
years. Besides, at the higher level, there are more fringe
years, he has headed, at least temporarily, several
other benefits in terms of evaluation of papers and fees for
departments. He rounds off this portfolio by being the
setting question papers.
—
college sports officer. In his spare time if a person of
such As a staffer puts it: ‘Some have actually gone out and
onerous responsibilities can have any spare time he
recruited students for their PG departments. They have
practises ayurveda and homoeopathy. Clearly a
man of persuaded their parents that they would pay the fees and
many parts.
even help the youths otherwise. From their point of view,
Jain saab’s versatility is aided by several factors.
the alternative is closure of the department and transfer.’
There are very few lecturers and students at the
The generosity ends with keeping the departments open.
post-graduate level. As he admits, it would be hard to find
Students seeking tuition have to go to teachers from higher
‘more than five students’ in many departments. In the
M.A. secondary schools. The college teachers ‘find the rates
(Economics) course, a single lecturer teaches all the
(
maximum Rs.50 per month) far too low.’
subjects.
Basic the college are poor. An ill-equipped
facilities in
Jhabua is one of India’s poorest districts,
library exists. Its records show not a single postgraduate
economically and educationally. Tribals account for over
student has been issued five books in the course of an
85 per cent of the population and the vast majority of them
entire year.
are way below the poverty line. The few adivasis
who make Buying books for the library is difficult since the
itto college struggle to stay there.
government provides just Rs.200 per subject. A senior
‘Over here,’ one senior staff member tells me, ‘some
lecturer here calls that sum ‘ridiculous’. Counting fifty
teachers use their salaries to admit students, to pay their
subjects, this would mean a grant of Rs. 10,000 for books.
fees.’Touching, but not entirely based on altruism. The
The University Grants Commission provides a few
teachers, drawing UGC scales at the PG level, are
relatively thousand rupees more. In any case, says the lecturer, 75
very well off in this district. If departments rim with
less per cent of the books are outdated. What about PG-level
than five students for a while, they are likely to be shut
books on the open market? You have to go to Indore to
down. That means a loss of jobs or transfers for the
buy those,’ says one student. ‘The average book costs
around Rs. 100. Often, the cost of going to Indore and back A Petlawad puts it this way: 'If both
tribal activist in
is more than the cost of the book.' adivasi and non-adivasi children Eire educated on tribal
Yet, the manoeuvres of a few teachers or the funds, there can be little objection to it. But the tragedy is
availability of books do not explain the mess that is that adivasi children are not getting educated. Yet, tribal
Jhabua’s education; It’s more complex than that. This is funds run the entire schooling system. In effect, adivasis
a district that has even had the odd excellent pay for the education of some of their oppressors.’
administrator. But, as an officer in the tribal welfare By the time Jhabua’s children move on to college, the
department points out, ‘the rot begins at the primary division is stark. A typical picture of a college at the
school level. It starts with the failure to retain adivasi undergraduate level is: there are twenty- two adivasi
students there.’ That problem is typical of the schooling students in the first year of the B.Com degree. At the
system in many tribal districts. beginning of the third year, there are three. In the B.A.
The alarming drop-out rates, says a senior IAS officer degree, first year, there are fifty-eight tribals. In the third
in Bhopal, conceal an irony. In this district, tribals pay for year of the same course, there are just twenty-two.
the education of the non-tribals who dominate every At the postgraduate level, in Jain saab’s college, there
sphere of activity. Jhabua being an adivasi majority is just one adivasi in the PG department in both
(Hindi)
district, schools here run on tribal welfare department first and second years. In the Economics department,
funds. The benefits, however, go mainly to non-adivasis. there is just one tribal in the first year and none in the
At the primary school stage, official data show that 81 second. In the Sociology course, there are two adivasis in
per cent of all children enrolled are tribals. By the time the first year and none in the second. In the M.Com.
they reach middle school, non-tribal children touch 4 per degree, there are no tribals at all.
1
cent while the proportion of adivasis falls to 59 per cent. ‘We have a system,' says the tribal welfare department
By the time they reach high school, non-tribals—who officer, ‘withan in-built bias against the tribal child. And
account for less than 15 per cent of the population are — that is not just the educational system. With no emphasis
now 51 per cent of all those enrolled. By the end of the on tackling the poverty and backwardness of the tribals,
higher secondary stage, tribals fall to 31 per cent. the exercise becomes a sham. You can even blame it on
In college, their respective proportions are almost the the victims. The schooling system, despite many stupid
opposite of their share in the population. Now, non-tribals experiments, is not designed to retain tribal children. And
make up 80 per cent of the students or more. The situation the socio-economic system drives them away totally,
of tribal girls —
in a district where female literacy is 8.79 though they may be keen on gaining an education. It’s not
per cent—is tragic. Accounting for under 30 per cent of just the funds. It’s the lack of commitment.’
enrolment at the primary school level, they’re down to 9.9 Many teachers agree that if primary schooling were
per cent by middle school. They fall further to 5.9 per cent both universal and compulsory and more affordable for
in high school and 2.8 per cent at the end of the higher tribals, things could improve dramatically. All assert that
secondary phase. At the level of college education, they're long-term change is inseparable from the task of fighting
all but eliminated. poverty in Jhabua. They also believe that, given the right
breaks, tribal students would do just as well as the rest.

Clemency Dodiyar, a Bhll tribal and trained teacher, Where students want to be masters
gives you an idea of what’s possible. Daughter of an
illiterate Bhil farmer. Clemency finished her B.A. in 1979.
With that, she became the first adivasi girl in the whole
district to get a first class at the degree level. She believes
her break came when she went to the Tandla Mission NANDAPUR, Koraput (Orissa): When the fathers and
school, among the better ones in Jhabua. The five years mothers of students at the Nandapur High School here
she spent there made her look at education with respect. turn up at the campus, it may not be for a Parent-Teachers
‘After that,’ she says, ‘I wanted to study. I worked very Association meeting. They could be there to borrow money
hard.’ Continuing her studies with Mission-related from the stipends their children receive. The children,
institutions, Clemency went to Ajmer in Rajasthan, Mhow mostly from extremely poor tribal or harijan backgrounds,
in M.P., Ranchi in Bihar and even Bangalore. She is now get Rs.150 a month as a stipend from the welfare
back in Jhabua and hopes to help in the education of other department.
tribal children while pursuing her own career. ‘Give them There are often prolonged delays in the arrival of
a chance,’ she says, ‘and you will see.’ stipends. So students may sometimes receive payment for
Ensuring that adivasi children get their ‘chance’ could six months together at one time. This means they migh t
be the major challenge facing Jhabua for many years. have Rs. 900 in hand on that day. But, during the period
of waiting, they have been living off their pathetically poor
parents. Which means some fathers and mothers might
arrive the same day as the stipends to borrow from their
children.
This is no ordinary school. It has a fine and committed
teaching staff who produce good results. Despite
struggling for survival in these educational backwaters,
some of its alumni have gone on to take graduate and
postgraduate degrees. A few have even moved towards
M. Phils and Ph.Ds. All this institution lacks are funds and
facilities.Circumstances have combined with govern-
mental neglect to bring the school to its present pass.
The private management exists in name but is unable
,
to run the school. The welfare department funds the school

depends on are meagre and often delayed. As a result,
what could be a model residential school (residential for
poorer students) is facing a crisis on many fronts. There
to go with the rice.’

are twenty-two residential students, including Gadaba
and Paroja tribals and some harijans. Subash. Dantun is 'Besides,' chips in Gobinda Guntu, a harijan student,
one of the tribals.
‘there are other chores related to cooking and these too
Subash and his friends don’t really like winter. They take time.' They can only have dal twice a week. The rice
have no reason Only three of the boys have blankets
to.
they consume is what they can bring from their villages,
and just eight possess anything approaching a sweater. which are mostly within a twenty-five-kilometre radius.
This is a region where night temperatures can drop to two They eat twice a day, a painfully frugal meal on both
degrees Celsius in winter. All the students sleep on gunny occasions. Luxuries such as a cup of tea or the occasional
sacks on the floor. Bedrolls and beds are unheard of. The t iffin are ruled out.
gunny sacks are from their parents’ farms. The boys manage to study between 6 a.m. and 8 a.m.
The twenty-two inmates share two rooms. They have They then spend the next one and a half hours cooking for
a single 100 watt bulb in the first and use a lower power themselves. Class begins at 10.30 a.m. and gets over
—
bulb in the second when there is electricity. As an official around 4 p.m. After that, its chore time again, until they
in Koraput tells me later: ‘Notmany see the link between finish cooking and eating by about 7.30 p.m. In the course
electricity and education. And I don’t mean just in schools. of the day, they have spent up to four or five hours on
Urbanites take electricity for granted. We are unable to cooking and related tasks.
think of students who cannot come home and study When they do get the stipend of Rs.150, it goes on
because there is no light. Since our own children can, we uniforms, food and books. A single exercise book costs not
less than Rs.5. So the amount is, inevitably, never enough.
do not worry about it. Yet, you will seldom find
‘Yet,’ says one of their teachers, ‘their determination to
schoolchildren doing well in places with little or no
electricity. You have only to look at rural Orissa and Bihar gain education is impressive. Also, the parents of this
to see this.’ region want a real education for their children, even if they
The cold and the Subash, ‘disturb
conditions,’ says can’t afford it.' Nandapur is part of Koraput, a mineral- rich
sleep and this affects our ability to focus on work the next area that is also home to some of the poorest people in the
morning.' But that isn’t the only thing that interferes with country. (Two new districts, including Malkangiri, have
their studies. emerged recently from Koraput.)
They also do their own cooking. ‘The region is dotted with s imilar schools,’ says
‘Though it should have been a proper hostel for the Surendra Khemendu, who runs an NGO in the vicinity.
poorer students,’ says one teacher, ‘there are no funds to Khemendu himself was a product of the school before
appoint a cook.' So the children, who range in age from going on to an M. Phil, at Jawaharlal Nehru University in
ten to fifteen, prepare their own food. ‘We collect firewood Delhi. ‘Yet,’ adds the teacher, ‘there has been a general
on Sundays and other Bishwanath Jalla,
holidays,’ says awakening among the poor about the need for an
a tribal student. ‘And every day, we need about three hours education. It’s sad that circumstances prevent them from
to do the cooking, since we have to pool our resources and acting on that realisation.’ Koraput’s literacy rate is less
plan on buying the occasional pumpkin or mooli (radish) than 1 9 per cent overall and, in the case of females, around
And the
81per cent.
In the face of all these circumstances, do the students
wish to continue? Yes, and six of the twenty- two know
exactly what they want to be: teachers. But why? ‘Many of
Meek Shall
the children in my village do not go to school,’ explains
Subash Dantun. ‘But everybody wants to go. They just Inherit
can’t afford it. If there were residential schools giving the
necessary facilities, all the children in our villages would
go. We wish they could.’ the Earth
Until a project comes along

MAGINE THE entire population of the continent of Australia
I turned out of their homes —eighteen people losing their

million
lands, evicted from their houses. Deprived of livelihood and
income, they face penury. As their families split up and spread
out, their community bonds crumble. Cut off from their most vital
resources, those uprooted are then robbed of their history,
traditions and culture. Maybe even forced to adopt an alien diet.
Higher rates of disease and mortality pursue the dispossessed.
So do lower rates of earnings and education. Also, growing
joblessness, discrimination and inferior social status. Oddly, it all
happens in the name of development. And the victims are

described as beneficiaries.
Sounds too far-fetched even as fiction?
It’s happened in India, where in the period 1951-90, over
21 .6 million people suffered precisely that fate —

displaced by just
dams and canals alone. Add mining
has dispossessed 2.1
that
million people and you have the population of Canada. Further,
industries, thermal plants, sanctuaries and defence installations
have thrown at least 2.4 million other human beings out of their
homes. That’s around twenty-six million Indians.
These are bottomline figures. The government accepts a
national figure of over fifteen million (up to 1985) arising from
‘development-related displacement'. That’s the jargon for people
losing their homes and lands to projects they may never have
asked for. The projects that uprooted these twenty-six million
Indians make up a list that is by no means complete. Thousands
of less known schemes and the people displaced by them remain
—
uncounted. Also, many projects big and small causing forced—
evictions, came after 1985.
The draft of the government’s ‘National Policy for
Rehabilitation' admits that almost 75 per cent of those displaced
since 1951 ‘were still awaiting rehabilitation’. (After forty-five
years, ‘awaiting’ seems a cruel term to use.) It concedes that ‘it
is not even possible’ to arrive at a rough figure of people
displaced ‘for the country as a whole. Displacement is only taken
72 Everybody Loves a Good Drought And the Meek Shall Inherit the Earth 73
to indicate direct displacement terms of land acquired.’

in
* Tribals make up just 8 per cent of our population. Yet, as
who Walter Fernandes of the Indian Social Institute points out, they
In other words, the estimates leave out many groups
schemes account for ‘more than 40 per cent of the displaced persons
are affected but do not own land. The rehabilitation
of all projects’. And, as the former vice-chancellor of Utkal
don’t cover landless labourers, fisherfolk and artisans. They
University, Prof. L.K. Mahapatra, says, there would be an
ignore millions outside the designated submergence zones or
equally big number of dalits and other landless among the
‘project areas’ hit by this vision of development. People whose
displaced.
lifesupport systems are crushed by projects. Or families in
locations affected by catchment area treatment. Or those losing
ground to compensatory afforestation.
* Have the marginalised ever been ‘beneficiaries’ of such
So when concedes that 40,000 families or
officialdom — schemes? Even in the official sense of that term? Not at all.
200,000 individuals—will be displaced by the Sardar Sarovar A large number of hydro-electric projects are located in tribal
projects, we’re really talking about a much larger number of
habitats. However, as Jaganath Pathy of the South Gujarat
people. Many of whom remain invisible on the record. People
University tells us: ‘No more than five per cent of tribal lands
are assured of irrigation.’
who will never receive any compensation.
No data capture the agony of the ‘resource-dispossessed’.
These are people who endure displacement without being
' Roughly one in every ten Indian tribals is a displaced person.
evicted. The Koya tribe in Orissa and the Bansode in Madhya
Dam projects alone have displaced close to a million adivasis.
Pradesh were cut off from bamboo by ‘law’. That is a As Pathy points out: ‘Of the 1 .7 million oustees from just
life-sustaining material for both. The Bansode tribe draws its very
nineteen public sector projects, a staggering 0.8 million of
name from bamboo. Private firms are now in control of the them belonged scheduled tribes. In some projects like
to the
bamboo forests the Koya grew and tended. The firms use them Koel Karo, Lalpur, accounted for among 80 to 1 00
etc, tribals
,
for paper manufacture. Having lost access to this vital resource,

per cent of the displaced.’ The last fifteen years have seen a
big entry into tribal areas of projects that cause displacement.
both tribes have suffered great misery. Yet, physically, they
remain where they are.
Peasants losing their land to moneylenders are not seen as
* The stories of displaced dalits are, in some ways, even less
victims of displacement. Still, they face all its effects. No known. In the early decades, development schemes came up
estimates measure displacement on the urban periphery. People in relatively more accessible areas. Mostly, regions largely
tossed out of their homes to make way for new urban colonies populated by and other backward sections. Records in
dalits
do not figure in any calculations. such cases either do not exist or are unreliable. Major stories
In official theology, this is ‘the price of development’. You of displaced dalit groups may thus never be told.
want to make progress, you have to sacrifice.

But who sacrifices? And whom? Why do the least
for
* Within tribal areas too tend to be vulnerable. For
dalits
privileged pay such a huge share of the ‘price’? What part of this instance, the Chhotanagpur Tenancy Act does not protect
‘price’ have the better-off ever borne? dalit land in that part of the country. The barriers to throwing
them out are less. There are also fewer hurdles in the way of
those —such as contractors— using the period of turmoil that the populations displaced within ... the “new sectors”:
projects bring to grab their land. displacements from forests and reserve parks; mining and
thermal power plant displacements; and other similar situations.’
Dr Michael M. Cernea, Senior Adviser to the World Bank, It’s unfair to treat the issues of war refugees and
lists some crucial processes affecting the displaced. All of these development-displaced people as competing problems. But
cause deep impoverishment. They include landlessness, switching on your television set might give you a sense of the
unemployment and homelessness. Further, apart from being chaos most major conflicts bring, whether in Afghanistan,
marginalised, displaced groups suffer a loss of food security. Rwanda, Bosnia, Chechenya or Somalia. The lives destroyed,
Besides, they nearly always record increased levels of illness the houses razed, the families split These
up, people in hunger.
and disease. Beyond this, they are hit by a loss of access to images of conflict touch us. At least they do where the media
common property such as water and grazing grounds. telling the story have no stake in the war.
Lastly, points out Dr Cernea, networks and assets that are The victims of the other, unseen war, stay largely invisible
a great strength of the affected peoples get dismantled. In many and rarely touch our consciousness. Their pain unfolds in far less
tribes, an adivasi building a house can have his whole clan turn horrendous ways. Still, theirs too is a tale of lives shattered,
out to help him construct it. This free community labour isa big houses in rubble and families split up for no fault of their own. A
financial saving for him. But it’s lost when the clan is split up and —
United Nations resolution of 1993 to which India was a
dispersed after displacement. party —terms forced evictions a ‘gross violation of human rights'.
The World Bank is one of the major agents of displacement. Yet, quite obviously, no UN funds are spent on the ‘refugees' of
Oddly, it is also one of its keenest
students. Popular resistance development.
to Bank-funded projects resulting in forced evictions has grown On the other hand, those uprooted by conflict and those
over the years. This has compelled that agency to address the evicted by development have common. Chief among
much in
issue. Few studies have the power and sweep of Dr Cernea’s these is the fact that women, children and the aged are more at
work on displacement at a global level. risk. In India, for instance, displacement and relocation in new
Speaking at Oxford University in 1995, Dr Cernea made surroundings tend to increase the exertion of women on theirtwo
some of the findings of a World Bank group on the subject.
public main chores: the fetching of water and firewood. Often, host
Among these, that (world-wide) about ten million people
‘
. . . communities in the new areas resent the arrival of the displaced.
annually enter the cycle of forced displacement and relocation in Women and children tend to be easy targets for their anger.
two “sectors" alone: dam construction, and urban/transportation. Compensation for displacement, when given at all, is largely
That means about 90-100 million people have been displaced in cash or land. Both these are mostly outside the control of
during the (last) decade.’ women. They have no real access to either, especially cash. This
As he put 'development-caused displacements
it,
have . . . in turn hurts the children who tend to fare better where the mother
tu rned out to be a much larger process than all the world’s annual is able to make some of the spending decisions. But the existing
new refugee flows framework does not recognise the independent rights of women
Besides, ‘
... the ten million figure annually, or 100 million to such resources.
people for the decade are still part/a/ figures. They do not include Though governments are unlikely to see it this way, forced
eviction violates not one but many human

rights and citizens’ must necessarily lead to more displacement, in short,
freedoms. It violates the right to liberty
and the right to choice. It displacement is inevitable. It be so. Land will
has been so, it will
hits the right to livelihood and promotes discrimination. It also be acquired as always. But this time, there will be a little first aid
mocks equality before law: the number of tribals and dalits who for the displaced. They won’t be consulted, but band aids will be
suffer forced eviction is hugely out of proportion to their share of supplied free.
the total population. The laws that govern acquisition are arbitraryand primitive.
So what is India’s rehabilitation policy about? Its title tells the The Land Acquisition Act of 894 and the Coal Bearing Act are
1
story: National Policy for Rehabilitation of Persons Displaced as Their philosophy allows of no challenge.
great examples of this.
a Consequence of Acquisition of Land. Acquisitions of land are made in the ‘national interest’. That,
It’s about land. Yet, that does not mean those who give up
at once, places them beyond question. Thousands of terrified
land for projects get a fair deal. In Palamau and Koraput districts tribals are hounded out of their homes and live on the jungle’s
I came across very many people who got a pittance in edge when the army practises firing in Palamau. That too is in
‘compensation’, sums far below the market value of their forcibly the national interest. If residents of Bombay’s elite Malabar Hill
attached land. Quite a few families got nothing at all. were treated the same way when the navy has its exercises, that
The land was taken without their consent. Compensation is would not be in the national interest. It would probably bring the
oftenbased on the patta showing ownership of the land. In tribal government down.
communities with traditions of common ownership, people held Who constitutes the nation? Only the elite? Or do the
large tracts without pattas for thousands of years. That they own hundreds of millions of poor in India also make up the nation?
the land is not in dispute. But they get no compensation when Are their interests never identified with national interest?
the land attached because validation is based on the patta.
is
is there more than one nation?
Or
Land, as we know, is not the only resource lost when people That is a question you often run up against in some of India’s
are forcibly shifted. Grazing grounds, fodder, herbs, forest poorest areas. Areas where extremely poor people go into
—
produce, community labour these go too. But there is not even destitutionmaking way for firing ranges, jet fighter plants, coal
the pretence of compensating people for the loss of such assets. mines, power projects, dams, sanctuaries, prawn and shrimp
The first line of the draft rehabilitation policy tells its own farms, even poultry farms. If the costs they bear are the ‘price’
story. It says: ‘With the advent of the New Economic Policy, it is
of development, then the rest of the ‘nation’ is having one endless
expected that there will be large investments . . .
’
These will free lunch.
generate an ‘enhanced demand for land . . .
’
Further, the
‘majority of our mineral resources, including coal, iron ore and
manganese reserves are located in the remote and backward
regions mostly inhabited by tribals.’
Itagrees that taking over land for projects ‘brings in its wake
hardships to the persons whose lands contribute to the process
of growth’. However, the document’s emphasis is not so much
on uprooted persons. It is on how to smoothen processes that
Gumla.
No one disputes that the proposed firing range will
In the army’s line of fire - 1 cause massive deforestation. Officials say the devastation
of the Betla National Park will follow. Large chunks of the
Project Tiger Reserve face damage. But the worst hit will
be the adivasis, including some of the poorest and most
primitive tribes.
SEKUAPANI, Gumla (Bihar): Badhwa and Birsa Asur lie The International Year of Indigenous Peoples has not
trembling on the jungle’s edge as the sky belches fire and
gone well for the impoverished tribals of Palamau and
the earth beneath rumbles. The terrified Asur tribals of
Gumla.
Sekuapani stay grouped in circles with their children,
Displacement is the key word across the
cattle, goats and pigs. They just hope their village, which
Chhotanagpur region. Major projects affect millions of
they evacuated hours earlier, survives.
people here adversely. This goes with land-grab, the
Sekuapani in Gumla is in the hot zone of the Indian
fudging of records, dam construction, some types of
army’s test firing range. This operates from Mahuadanr
mining and, of course, ‘development’. Most, if not all of
block in Palamau, one of India’s poorest districts. Each
those uprooted, are adivasis and dalits. Their capacity to
time the 23 Artilleiy Brigade, Ranchi, conducts its practice
resist is the least.
at this temporary range, it affects thousands of tribals.
When the Asurs go back to Sekuapani after the
Their families have to evacuate their homes and sleep on
fireworks, they count the costs in ’damaged crops and
the jungle’s periphery.
stolen chickens’.
When they go back in the morning, the tribals will
Army vehicles and artillery tearing across the fields
receive ‘compensation’ for the evacuation and for having
don't help agriculture much. Crop loss can be as high as
risked their huts, their possessions and perhaps their
Rs.7,000 per acre on occasion. Once, a village elder tells
lives. The army, in its munificence, will give each one of
me, ‘two bombs fell close to us. Often, trees are uprooted
them Rs 1 .50. Sometimes, the exercises can last up to four
and other trees simply diy out. Sometimes, shells fall close
or five days. This has been going on in different degrees
by but don’t go off.’
since 1956 at least, and has been stepped up in recent
I have seen the casing of one of the shells that had
years. Yet, the rest of the country knows very little about
fallen in a village. Empty, it weighed 12-15 kg. ‘Each time
it.
they practise,’ says Badhwa Asur, ‘we get less than
The army has now decided to make the range a
twenty-four hours notice. In that time, we have to collect
permanent one. Which means acquiring perhaps over
everything and go some four kilometres away to the
1,62,000 acres in Palamau and Gumla. That will displace
jungle.’
tens of thousands of Munda, Oraon, Asur, Birjia and Kisan
Resistance is growing across the affected villages.
tribals. Maybe a few Birhor tribals as well. Their only
There are at least twenty-nine in Palamau and over eighty
possession, their land, will soon be sacrificed to the Pilot
in Gumla. And so, says Pascal Minj, a retired block welfare
Project Netarhat Field Firing Range in Palamau and
Shiv Prasad Sahu, has told them so. Former Union

minister of state, Sumati Oraon, has also echoed Sahu's
claim that the plan is dead. In reality, there is no evidence
of this on official record.
Sahu queriedthe defence ministry about a proposal
to builda sena chhavni (army cantonment or base) in two
blocks of Gumla. The ministry simply replied that there
was no such proposal. And indeed, ‘they are right', says
an sympathetic to the tribals. ‘The proposal is for
official
afiring range, not a cantonment.’ The press, too, has been
making enquiries on the same lines as Sahu. So the
‘denial’ has not been really questioned.
Pascal Minj and others believe the cantonment will
follow in the next phase. They agree, though, that the term
has caused confusion. A junior official here puts it this
way. ‘Let us say you ask me if your village will be
submerged by a dam. If it is actually going to be destroyed
by a railway line, I will say no, it will not be submerged by
a dam. But I would remain silent about the railway line.’
‘The problem,' a Jan Sangharsh Samiti activist tells
me, ‘is that no one bothers to visit these remote villages.
So how will they learn for themselves what is happening?’
He is proved right. More than twenty days after Sahu
received his ‘denial’, the army is still mapping the area.
An Asur tribal with one of the army's shells. Enormous damage is caused when the
army practises with its guns at the test firing range The villagers try to make the
.
—
Seven of these villages Netarhat, Naina, Husmu,
best ofabad deal by selling some ofthe shells as metal scrap to the traditional smiths Navatolly, Chormunda, Hormundatolly and
ofLohardaga next door .
—
Arrahans will be acquired outright. It is from 6,300 acres
here that the guns will boom. I have visited five of these
adopted a phase by phase
officer in Mahuadanr, ‘they have villages. In all of them, the residents have had plenty to
approach. They will touch only so many villages at one say, despite being kept in the dark about details. But that’s
time. The idea is to sow confusion and avoid a big another story.
backlash.' An adivasi himself, Minj and his Jan Sangharsh
Samiti are organising the tribal protests.
Conflicting reports and some calculated misinfor-
mation have caused much bafflement. Many in Palamau
now believe the plan is off. It seems the former Gumla MP
Already, the effects are disastrous. In Chormunda, I

In the army’s line of fire - 2 am told that ‘land prices are falling.
So the small strips of
land that families sell off at the time of weddings are
finding no takers.’ This has placed some marriages in
jeopardy. ‘Can anyone tell us where we are to go?’ asks
Elizabeth Ainda, a Munda tribal. In places like Sekuapani
SEKUAPANI, Gumla (Bihar): Getting to villages like where the bombs fall, says Lakhandev Ram Asur, no one
Sekuapani is not easy. This is where the artillery shells gets any compensation for the crops destroyed. The
from the army’s firing practice actually fall. The affected damage can be as high as Rs. 7,000 per acre.
villages are remote and spread out. Some hamlets are very A few army jawans also live in some of these villages.
hard to reach. The rich variety of dialects makes interviews They are torn by conflicting loyalties. But in every village,
more difficult. And the tribals are at first reluctant to show two things stand out. The first is a determination to resist.
us the metal scrap from the shells. A few of them try to The second is the failure of the authorities to visit a single
make the best of a bad job by retrieving the metal and dwelling and take people into confidence.
selling it to the traditional smiths of Lohardaga next door. ‘No officer has met us. We have received no notice,
They are a bit shy about this activity, fearing they could though they have done their mapping. Yet, we know they
be deprived of even these few crumbs if the army gets to plan to throw us out. But we will fight to the last to preserve
know of it. our lands,’ says Manuel Minj, mukhiya of Pakriphat
People here tell us that some villagers died when shells village. In Hormunda, Tethru Munda and others tell me:
they had picked up went off in their hands. Sekuapani is Hum jaan de denge, lekin zamin nahtn denge.’ (‘We will
in the hot zone of the Indian army's test firing range. That give our lives, but not our land.')
operates from the Mahuadanr block of Palamau. With the Why not talk to your legislator, I ask Birjiya tribals in
army moving to make the range a permanent one, many Arrahans. ’We don’t even know where he lives,’ replies
villages in both Gumla and Palamau are affected. Now, two Lakhan Birjiya. Neither the MLA nor the member of
categories have been listed, ‘acquisition’ and ‘notification’. Parliament from here—both belonging to the BJP—has
The first set of villages will be acquired outright. In the been sighted in ages. Their party supports the firing range
second, or ’notified’ villages, people will have to leave their idea.
homes each time firing takes place. That will be quite often The army says there will be no ‘army cantonment in
once the range is permanent. Even the block headquarters Gumla’. It is silent on the firing range. The Palamau
could fell under the 'notified' area. This conjures visions Students Union has got a letter from the Union minister
of senior local officials having to evacuate their offices each of state for home, Rajesh Pilot. It simply states that he is
time firing practice is underway. But all this, as Pascal looking into the matter. Prime Minister Narasimha Rao’s
Minj insists, and as some officials concede, is the thin end note to former Union minister of state, Sumati Oraon,
of the wedge. In the final count, the villages affected merely says he has received her letter. There is no denial
permanently could number over 120. in either. And both came long after the army’s ‘denial’.
If the plan goes through, the army will acquire the the phone: ‘What if Bombay
residents of Malabar Hill in
main water source at Netarhat. The project will wind up have to evacuate each time the navy has an exercise? And
the prospering tourism business in Betla and Netarhat hill are paid Rs 1 .50 a day pains? This is happening
for their
resort. Hotel properties worth crores will go down. Forest here because these people are adivasis. Since this is a
bungalows, including fine examples of old British backward, cut off region.’ Local officials, too, do not seem
architecture, will be lost. It would also deprive Mahuadanr to favour the range. Some have filed objections to the
of its main access road. The distance to Ranchi will go up proposed land acquisition. I am able to confirm this,
from 180 to 250 km and that to Banari from 60 to 280 km. though the officials themselves flatly decline to comment.
Many irrigation structures would go. The army project Protest marches in Daltonganj and Gumla have been
could cover up to sixty kilometres or more. The process
impressive. The unity of the affected people has withstood
would be irreversible. For this time, the firing range will
much pressure. That unity has been their main strength
be permanent and not temporary as earlier.
and it has a simple basis. As Phulmani Devi Birjiya of
As many as twelve school buildings would go. So
Arrahans puts it: ‘Better they kill us. Without our land, we
would many revenue bungalows and panchayat bhavans.
But the military seems to have exempted the public school are dead anyway. They will give us some little money. Who
at Netarhat. ‘For army children,’ says one retired official. will give us land?’ Pascal Minj says, ‘These adivasis of the
‘That's why they’ve spared the school. Anyway, the army hills will be helpless in the plains, dependent as they are
excels at grabbing hill station areas.’ on forests. Already, some of them are vanishing tribes.’
The affected area also has some of the finest sal forests And many more be affected by the ‘Pilot Project
will
anywhere. The Betla National Park, the Project Tiger Netarhat Field Firing Range’. The very use of the words
Reserve and adjoining forests are also home, by one count, ‘Pilot Project’, points out one official, ‘suggests that more
to 85,000 wild animals. These include 57 tigers, 60 is to follow’.
leopards, 300 bison and 115 wild elephants. A part of the Ironically, if the project is scrapped it will be due to
Project Tiger reserved area seems certain to be affected. ‘environmental considerations'. That and the army’s
The plan, says one Jan Sangharsh Samiti activist, is financial constraints. They have Rs 80 crores, but need
for a much larger base in the long run. One that ‘could be well over twice that sum to carry out their plans. The laws
the second biggest in India’. This cannot be independently demand that the army undertake massive compensatory
confirmed. But people at the Roman Catholic Mission in
afforestation. Which could mean covering an area twice
Mahuadanr tell me that officers have suggested they
the size of that suffering deforestation. This the army
develop a poultry farm that could supply the army up to
cannot afford.
100,000 eggs each day.
‘Animals and trees,’ says one official sarcastically.
Counter -pressures are at work on different fronts.
Anythin g that affects Project Tiger could gain global ‘Their being affected will draw more global attention than
displaced tribals.’
attention. Sections of the Bihar government are also
opposed to the range. As one official in Patna tells me on
‘Even if the firing range is scrapped,’ Kundra Kisan.
an elderly kisan tribal, tells me, ‘people should know how
adivasis are treated in their own land. Our story must be the affected people wrote a few paragraphs. These stressed the
told.’
importance of the firing range and how the army was doing a
great job. But it won little public credibility. The ‘locals' did not for
a moment believe the project would affect them, as the army
promised,‘in a very positive manner’. Anti-range tribals staged
Postscript
huge demonstrations in Ranchi and even, later, in Delhi. The
protesters, from different tribes, stayed largely united throughout,
The publication of the firing range story in different editions of the
despite the odds.
Times of India threw a spanner in the works. Sections of the
With local resistance mounting, the Bihar administration
government of Bihar were already reluctant to go ahead with the
found it would be a great folly to push ahead with mass evictions.
scheme. Now they tried to get out of it altogether.
Angry army brass called a press conference in Ranchi on 9 The more so for a government claiming to speak for the poor and
the oppressed. The project for a permanent range went into cold
December 1 993 to denounce the report. They even posted me
storage. When last heard of, it remained there. The peace is only
—
an invitation to it on 1 8 December. In a press release, the army
occasionally broken by the army’s tentative attempts to resume
singled out this story for attack. It named the Times of India in a
temporary firing practice as in the past.
diatribe against ‘absolutely baseless, motivated and false'
reports. These, it said, appeared to be ‘the handiwork of some
parties having a vested interest in the area’. It added that ‘the
actual facts are entirely different’. In true bureaucratic style, the
officer writing the press release got the date of the story wrong.
The army's release invited journalists to attend the press
conference. There, they could learn how the project would, in
fact, ‘affect the locals in a very positive manner’. Nothing very

much came of it. A proper press conference would have meant
allowing a Times of India reporter to be present and ask
questions. And denials would have been pointless. still have a I
copy of a letter from the army to civilian authorities pushing the

latterto move on the ‘acquisition of the Netarhat field firing range’.
The letter angrily points out that while the army is 'pressing hard
for the details’ to be worked out, local officials in the district of
Palamau have been dragging their feet on the issue. It calls upon
a senior government officer in Patna to get the district authorities
to fall in line.
Later, however, the army took a press party from Patna on

a guided tour of Netarhat. A couple of reporters who never met
And the Meek Shall Inherit the Earth. 89
the reason. ‘We had make way for the Upper Kolab
to
Chikapar: Chased by development - 1 multipurpose and power) project and the naval
(irrigation
ammunition depot.’ Incidentally, the land housing the
second Chikapar also belonged to the same villagers.
With great effort, the villagers reorganised Chikapar.
CHIKAPAR Itcame to life again in several little pockets in yet another
(Koraput): Mukta Kadam wept as she herded
location after the second uprooting. They have now
her five children in front of her, luggage on their heads,
received eviction notices for the third time. They must
guiding them through a jungle in darkness and rain. Her
leave this place as well.
Chikapar, had been acquired for the MiG jet fighter
village,
project of the Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd. (HAL)
Chikapar is being chased by development.
and her Jagannath Kadam, one of the village's few educated
family evicted on an angry monsoon night.
‘We didn’t know where members, is a schoolteacher. He works in another village,
to go. We just went because the as there has been no school in Chikapar for years. Many
saab log told us was terrifying. I was so frightened
to go. It
of its children have never seen the inside of one. Kadam
for the children on that night,' she recalls. That was
in
1968. Mukta, a Gadaba tribal, didn’t know then that she, says, The reasons being given for the third eviction vary.
along with her entire village of 400-500 large joint families, Minister Harish Chandra Bakshi Patra said at a public
would have meeting here that we had to make way for a poultry farm.
to go through the same experience two more
times. Another version is that the present set-up of the village
Chikapar is almost like any other village on the poses problems for the Military Engineering Service (MES)
Koraput map. Almost. Perhaps no other village in the in the area. We don’t know. We only know that the villagers
world has faced displacement three times, on each are getting eviction notices.'
If the last reason is true, says one official, ‘little
occasion in the name of development. In the late '60s, it
was the MiG project. Evicted to make way for the fighter Chikapar will have, in succession, taken on the air force,
planes, the villagers resettled on other land which too they the navy and the army. If it were not so tragic, it would be
owned. And which too they nostalgically named Chikapar. almost comical. Mind you, the land being confiscated on
this third occasion also belongs originally to the same
In 1987, Chikapar residents were tossed out en masse
villagers. It has simply been grabbed by the state, making
from their second location —or what might be called
these people homeless, three-time land losers. And all in
Chikapar-2. Many had not even received the
compensation due from the the name of development.’
first eviction.
This time, Mukta wended her way down the road to Kadam, a Gadaba, had stayed on in Chikapar-2. That
nowhere with a grandchild. ‘Once again, it was raining. was the village's location after it was evicted the first time
to make way for the MiG project. He did not take the second
We took shelter under a bridge and stayed there for some
days,' says she. Arjan Pamja, also from the same tribe the — — —
eviction for the Kolab project seriously. The waters of
the Kolab did not quite reach his house, so he defied orders
Gadabas are one of the most ancient peoples here recalls — and stayed put. ‘Since my family has been alone here,
we’ve had to face dacoities, but I'm not leaving again, he

’
from us for other jobs. But what money do we have?’ Years
says firmly. after the displacement, a few more of the villagers got
Chikapar was not a village of very poor people. It
comprised Gadaba and Paroja tribals, some doms
—
permanent jobs in HAL on a competitive basis, and not
as compensation for displacement.
(harijans) and a few OBCs. Originally located in Sunabeda As Chikapar fell apart, smother problem emerged.
(literally, the golden lands), the villagers owned big tracts
Caste certificates are related to or based on domicile
of land. ’My joint family of seven owned 1 29 acres in 1 963,’ certificates. These, in turn, are linked to land holdings.
says Balram Patro. ‘Of these, we were compensated for
ninety-five acres only and got a total of Rs 28,000. And
that, many, many years later. But there was no help with
house sites or materials. Nor was there any kind of
rehabilitation,’ he says.
’My family owned sixty acres of land,’ says Jyotirmoy
Khora, a harijan, ’and we got Rs. 15,000—Rs. 150 per acre
of hilly land and Rs. 450 per acre of Class I land. Again,
the money came much later. And that was it. Not a single
paisa towards rehabilitation, not even a home site.’
‘They promised us one job per house and one home
for each displaced family,’ says Narendra Patro. He is
speaking to us at what can be called Chikapar-3. ‘People
did not even resist on either occasion. Yet, the authorities
went back on every assurance.’
Less than fifteen people found jobs, at very menial
levels, in HAL, which has a total workforce of around
4,500. Another thirty also got into HAL, with some
difficulty, as casual labourers. They had no security of
tenure. Those who ‘made it' as casual workers were offered
an alternative home— 120 km away from the HAL
township.
Despite being the village’s first matriculate in 1970,
and taking a diploma from a technical training school,
Khora remained unemployed for eight years. Only then did
he find a job with HAL. Even for casual labour, says Madan
Khasla, a harijan, ‘the contractors always bring people A Gadaba family in Chikapar They need to figure out where to go next as their
.
village is being displaced for the third time Very few among those displaced have
from outside. And the recruiting agents want payments ,
found jobs* Almost no one has received any compensation worth the name.
Without their land, the residents of Chikapar found The men got by. But when we went with our pots for water,
domicile certificates hard to come by. That meant it was some of the men from the area behaved very badly with
also harder to obtain caste certificates proving their us. What could we do?’
adivasi or harijan identities. This, in turn, further The revenue inspector of Sunabeda, Purnachandra
damaged their chances of finding jobs. Parida, confirms that eviction notices have been sent out
‘On the one hand,’ says Samara Khilo in Chikapar-3, a third time. ‘They are encroachers and must go,' he tells
‘we could not get jobs here as the authorities had betrayed me.
us. On the other, we can’t get reserved jobs outside this Khora laughs when told of the inspector’s assertion:
area because we cannot prove our caste.' ‘Each time this village has been shifted we have moved,
Four years ago, the Naval Ammunition Depot mostly to our own land. Remember, we owned a lot of acres
promised Class IV jobs to some of the displaced. However, in this region. They have made us encroachers on our own
the venue for all these job interviews was Vizag city, says land by declaring it the property of the state. If the
Khora. That made it difficult for the dispossessed villagers government declared your house as its property tomorrow,
to be present. ‘The few interviews they had right here, you too would be an encroacher in your own home.*
those jobs too went mostly to outsiders. The posts
available at all are those like sweeper, mali, khalasi,
chowkidar, helper. Outsiders pay Rs.8,000 to Rs. 12,000
to get even these jobs. In their present state, many of our
people cannot afford this.’
The same projects displaced many other villages as
well. But only Chikapar suffered the fate three times.
Curiously, the mood of its inhabitants is more than
reasonable. Many tell me that even now, they only want a
fair deal. In employment terms, they see this as jobs for
each family. In parts of Orissa and Bihar, the jobs offered
in compensation have been linked to land surrendered for
the projects. But this hurts artisans and other landless
people.
Mukta has had enough of being shifted around: ‘As it
was we had to cover such distances to get water and
firewood. Now. we have to spend twice as much time doing
that. My body can’t take it any more.’ Her neighbour
Mantha adds: ‘At least in the old place we knew everybody.
After shifting, it’s different. We came to a place where we
were strangers and local people behaved badly with us.
much to focus attention on the plight of the displaced for

years. He thinks there are issues more vital than the fines.
Chikapar: Chased by development - 2 ‘Most crucial,’ he says, ‘is what happened to the over 400
hectares taken from Chikapar. What did they do with the
thousands of acres from seventeen other villages attached
by the government in the ’60s?’ Then, too, Biju Patnaik
was chief minister of Orissa. ‘And he had this grand idea
CHIKAPAR (Koraput): When the residents of Chikapar that all the units of HAL would come to Koraput.’ So huge
villagefound themselves facing eviction for a record third tracts of land were acquired in pursuit of that vision.
time, they weren’t quite sure what to do. ‘What can we do?’
Nothing of the sort happened, though. The other units
asked Pammia Das, a Gadaba tribal, in despair. ‘Wherever
of HAL came up in Bangalore and elsewhere. As a result,
we some project
go, or the other will come up and we’ll thousands of acres forcibly taken over from the eighteen
have to move again.’ villages remain unused to this day. ‘They are neither
Right now, the problem is even more complex. This
returning the land, nor leasing it for cultivation. We are
twice-evicted village may get no compensation at all when
prepared to repay such “compensation" as they gave us if
uprooted fora third time. And it surely will be, to make we get back our land,’ says Khora, laughing. That seems
way for either a poultry farm or a Military Engineering unlikely to happen.
Service depot. That the present site of the village has no
‘I can’t move again, let them do what they like,’ says
water supply and no electricity, and no Primary Health
Mukta Kadam, the oldest woman in the village. She was
Centre (PHC) seems to be a deliberate punishment. Pakalu
one of the first to be evicted in 1 968. ‘Why does this always
Kadam, also a Gadaba tribal, shows me a notice from the
have to happen to us?’ she asks. Possibly because they
tehsildar which suggests this. ‘You have been occupying
Eire adivasis and harijEins and this is Koraput, home to
this area illegally vacate within sixty days,’ it says.
. . .
some of the poorest people in the country.
‘Even in our second location,’ says Kadam, ‘We have
When the National Aluminium Company Ltd. (NALCO)
been told we are on this land illegally. This is our land.
came up in 1981 in Koraput, says Prof. L. K. Mahapatra,
But they want us to vacate it. Our ownership was never
more than 47.7 per cent of the 2,500 displaced families
recognised on record. So we have no rights, no domicile
were tribals. And 9.3 per cent were Harijans. Dr
certificates. Not even caste certificates.' Without these,
Mahapatra, a former vice-chancellor of Utkal £ind
they cannot avail of loans that are theoretically, at least,
Sambalpur universities, points out that over 55 per cent
within their reach.
of the 3,067 families displaced by the upper Kolab project
After getting the notice of eviction at their third
were also from SC or ST groups.
location,about one hundred villagers went to the revenue
The Machkund hydro-electric project in Koraput
department in June 1993. The department used the
districthad displaced almost 3,000 families by 1960. Of
meeting to collect fines from all of them for — these, 51.1 per cent were tribals and 10.2 per cent were
‘encroachment on government land’.
harijans. ‘It is a pity,’ notes Prof. Mahapatra in a major
Jyotirmoy Khora is a HAL employee who has done
study on the subject, that 'out of 2,938 families displaced, the compensation many just went away elsewhere to
only 600 were rehabilitated. Of which, 450 were tribal survive,’ says Kanum Gadaba.
families. Not a single scheduled caste family was ’When the refugees from erstwhile East Pakistan came
The number of those affected was, in the
rehabilitated.’ into Orissa in the '60s and again in 1971,’ says Khora,
grossly underassessed.
first place, ‘nearly a lakh of rupees was spent on each one of them.
Adivasis make up only around 8 per cent of India’s Less than Rs. 15,000 was given to whole joint families who
population. Yet, of nearly twenty-six million people across belonged here and were losing land, not gaining it like the
the country estimated to have been direct victims of refugees. Better to be a refugee.’
displacement since 1951, over 40 per cent are tribals. In Meanwhile, the various fragments of Chikapar await
Orissa, that figure is surely worse. However, clear their third uprooting. Some people have already been
estimates are hard to come by. evicted. For a poultry farm, or the depot, or yet another
At the national level, less than 25 per cent of those project? No one seems to know for sure.
displaced by development have been rehabilitated in the ‘Basically,’ says Khora, ‘they don’t want us to be
past four decades. Again, the scenario in Orissa is worse. around like an eyesore, sticking out here. That way, we
Within this dismal picture. Koraput plumbs the depths. A —
would be telling our tales of woe to others especially the
1993 study funded by the Union ministiy of welfare, is minister, if he ever comes.’
revealing. In it, Walter Fernandes and Anthony S. Raj, of ‘They have got their development and the land. We
the Indian Social Institute, Delhi, have looked at have got no development, not even a proper school, and
‘Development; Displacement and Rehabilitation in the have lost our land,' he adds.
Tribal Areas of Orissa’. And so, the Golden Lands await their gloomy harvest.
They note that in Koraput district alone, ‘around one
lakh tribals have been deprived of their land, including 1 .6
lakh hectares of forests on which they had till then Postscript
depended for their livelihood. More than 6 per cent of the
district population, a majority of them tribals, have been The problems of the people of Chikapar and other villages here
displaced (by projects). This trend seems to continue even continue. Actions led by people Khora seem to have kept up
like
today.’ in the past year. And some non-governmental bodies, such as
Take just the Sunabeda region. Since the break up of the Institute for Socio-Economic Development (IS ED),
Chikapar began, ‘nearly 5,000 families or 40,000 people Bhubaneswar, have stepped in. They have given time and effort
have been displaced by different projects', says Jyotirmoy to studying the problems of the displaced in the area. They hope
Khora. ‘And all promises of rehabilitation have proved to reconstruct facts, details and data lost or destroyed by
false. His own family held land in the original Chikapar. twenty-five years of neglect and apathy.
The process of displacement has brought other
results. Many families have simply disintegrated. It has
also left thousands destitute. ‘After waiting a long time for
latter, if they have any land. But it is with bamboo that

Banning the bees from honey their creativity really emerges.
Few humans have interacted so imaginatively, so
intensely, and yet, so gently with a single creation of
nature as have the Koya tribals with bamboo. The Koya in
MALKANGIRI (Orissa): The first thing that strikes you is
that the houses are made almost entirely of bamboo. Only
— —
their roofs which have bamboo joints are of thatch.
There are close to 150 dwellings in Sangel village and
almost all are suffused with bamboo. The boundary walls
around the houses here are also made of bamboo. So is
the village Kabutar Khan a.
As an irritated sow grunts a warning, we look around
At least two of her new litter are encased in tiny
at her.
bamboo baskets, custom made. In and around the house
of Mhadi Bheema, the village pedda
or elder in Sangel,
there are at least fifty-two objects made, predictably, of
bamboo.
From the fishing ‘net’ or trap Mhadi Bheema brings
home with him, to the baby cradles, the baskets for
brooding hens, and the rain-proof hat an old woman
wears, almost everything of significance in the village
seems to be made of bamboo. People here even make fire
by rubbing together two pointed bamboo sticks.
This is no isolated freak of a village. The villages of
Suplur, Kambheda and Pitaghata look very much like
Sangel. So do many others spread across several blocks.
Welcome to Koya world.
The brilliant use of bamboo by the Koya tribe makes
even parts of Podiya block seem beautiful. (The word
Podiya literally means ‘barren’.) There are about 87,000
Koyas in the Malkangiri-Koraput region. Almost all their
villageshave this distinctive quality. The Koya practise
Feu) humans have interacted so imaginatively, so intensely and yet, ao gently with
f
shifting as well as stable cultivation. Now increasingly the a single creation of nature as have the Koya tribals with bamboo Almost everything
.
of significance in a Koya village is made from it

.
—
Orissa are mainly in Malkangiri one of India’s poorest an answer. ‘From the companies, the government gets tax.
districts. Some live next door in Andhra Pradesh. From From the Koya, what do they get?’
childhood, members of this unique tribe, says Irma It isn’t the first time the Koyas have lost a home. The
Kawasi, sarpanch of Pitaghata, ‘learn the Koya ethic. We District Gazetteer says the Koya tradition is that they were
teach them to cut the bamboo in such a way that it grows driven from the plateau in Bastar country by famine and
again. We never destroy the forests because our lives disputes about 200 years ago. Now, it’s a new form of
depend on them/ displacement. One in which, says Kawasi Bheema in
From regeneration to phased and planned felling, it is Suplur have our houses but no home. What
village, ‘we
all there in the Koya ethic. Their relationship with bamboo, are the Koya without bamboo?’
far from being a conquest of nature, is a romance with In Kambheda village, Era Padiyami proudly shows us
nature. the many things he has made from bamboo. These are not
Yet, bamboo is also the social and economic oxygen of for sale in the market but for use by his family. They
the Koya. In recent years, forest laws removing their access include: eram (umbrella), guta (basket for vegetables),
to that material have denied them this oxygen. However, jaugula (a mini- basket used as a measuring unit for rice),
big corporates (via the Orissa Forest Development osod (flute), tekrom (big fish trap) and kike kadog (a bag to
Corporation) have gained mostly unchecked access. They carry the fish in). There are also eighteen types and sizes
seek large quantities of bamboo for paper. Their imprint of baskets. Besides, the Koyas use bamboo shoots in their
is now all over the place in huge patches of barren land food and medicinal preparations.
where dense forests once stood. Ironically, the companies ‘We have- used bamboo products in barter,’ says
and their middlemen often hire the Koya on a casual Padiyami. ‘Now we have to buy the things we could get by
—
basis to fell their own forests. exchanging our bamboo items. We also have to buy things
An IAS officer who has had much to do with forestry we could make for ourselves.' This has hit the living
in Orissa points to the paradox. ‘On the one hand, you standards of the already poor Koyas. ‘The laws also mean,’
have the Koyas cutting strictly for their personal needs says Anda Madakami, ‘that forest guards harass us. They
with sickles. They mostly want the young bamboo. On the do not allow us to take minimal forest produce for our
other, you have the companies bulldozing everything in —
personal needs though we were told we are allowed that
sight, on a mass scale. Young or old bamboos, whatever by law.’
the size, variety or age, it’s all the same to them. If there In theory the Orissa Forest Development Corporation
are huge bamboo forests at all, it is in part because the (OFDC) is in full control of bamboo areas in these forests.
Koya have nursed these with such care. But it is the It sells the bamboo to the companies. In reality, says
traditional and controlled activity of the tribe that becomes Kamraj Kawasi, an emerging Koya leader, it works
illegal.’ differently. ‘Private parties and the Forest Corporation
But why cut off the Koyas from bamboo while allowing agree on the area to be harvested. The companies employ
private companies to access it? Sadhashiv Hanthal, a casual workers after the government has fixed the rate.’
harijan living in the mainly Koya village of Pitaghata, has ‘This is where the middleman comes in. And he often
brings to labour from Andhra. Those Koyas who get taken banned from honey.
—
on as casual labourers whoever the employer may Only, these bees have no sting.
be— seldom get the government rate of Rs.25 a day. In
practice, they often get as little as a rupee for several
bamboos. Even that requires that they go two to four Postscript
kilometres into the forest, cut and carry the heavy
bamboos back to their village. Then they have to walk a Others too viewed the OFDC’s bamboo forest deals with dismay.
further, similar distance to the depot.’
One of the country's seniormost bureaucrats warned that officers
Forest Corporation officials deny Kawasi’s charges.
ran a ‘grave risk of prosecution' in being party to such deals.
But the process is so blatantly visible that the denials carry Writing in the bulletin Wastelands News in late 1995, he
no weight. Simply put, it seems the OFDC is leasing the among
observed that, other things, the leasing of the bamboo
forests to private parties. This is unlawful since does not
it forests to industry did not have the Government of India's
have the Government of India’s permission.
sanction.
‘We use bamboo in our construction materials, to the
The arrangement is unlawful,’ wrote N.C.Saksena,
'entire
charpoy you are sitting on, in making beds, ’says Sukdev
Director of the Lai Bahadur Shastri National Academy of
Kawasi of Suplur. He points to a flagon made of a dried-out Administration, Mussoorie. He too found that the poor were being
vegetable gourd and encased in bamboo. ’See this cask?
actively discriminated against by the OFDC. The figures of one
It keeps the water cool. The Koya can
never harm the depot showed that while bamboo was being sold to local
bamboos. They are so central to our lives. It is a great
cultivators at Rs.4.30 per piece, it was being sold to industry at
injustice on the government’s part to curb our access. Can
roughly 15 paise a piece. But the number of pieces sold to
you ban the bees from the honey?’ cultivators was negligible, just 350. Industry, however, got over
so.
Apparently, governments can. They have already done
And
the denial of access is hurting to more ways too.
—
three million pieces at 15 paise each! The same pieces were
each in open auction. But a mere 27,000
fetching Rs.1 0 to Rs.1 3
— —
Indebtedness unlike the bamboo forests seems to be
were sold that way. The depot had sold no pieces at all to local
growing among the Koyas.
artisans.
The consequences of being denied access to bamboo Saksena’s warning on the legal risks of such deals proved
have been disastrous for the Koya. They show that
prophetic. In early996, the new government of Orissa filed two
1
physical displacement is not the only action leading to
charge sheets against Biju Patnaik who was chief minister when
destruction of a people’s livelihood and culture. Cutting
the deals went through. One of these was on the subject of
them off from their most vital resources can produce those special concessions on bamboo royalty to a private business
results just as well.
house during his tenure. The state, charged, rather obviously,
it
The government did not physically shift the Koya had lost out as a result. Will this help alter things for the Koya in
villages. They were displaced only to the sense of being
any way? don’t know. just hope does.
I I it
barred from a crucial resource. Yet, they have taken a
beating they are unable to cope with. They are the bees
The house that Luaria built - 1
JALSINDHI, Jhabua (M.P.): Luaria and his fellow Bhilala

tribals still live in this area, probably the lowest slope and
point in Madhya Pradesh, geographically speaking. And
this is the lowest structure and field on that slope. Which
means that as the waters of the Narmada keep rising in
this submergence —
area already well past the
eighty-three-metre mark—this could be the first field and
house to go down. This is the house that Luaria built.
Like many in this part of Jhabua—one of India’s
—
poorest districts Luaria’s is a spacious house, built of
teak and bamboo, with three lofts. His Jalia or hamlet lies
in Jalsindhi village, where the Narmada demarcates
Madhya Pradesh from Maharashtra. He and nine other
families in thisJalia Eire refusing to leave their homes. They
want no part of the ‘rehabilitation* package offered them
in Gujarat. They have, instead, collectively built a second
structure alongside his house, as a symbol of their
defiance. And to shelter those who come to join them in
their risky protest. In other villages too some who will lose
their homes this year with the continued construction of
the Sardar Sarovar Project are holding out. Almost all are
adivasis, very backward and mostly illiterate. rains. It’s touching
Douin the slope, Luaria's wife, Boghi, prepares their fields for the
and she looks up at the sky in exasperation.
Down the slope, Luaria's wife, Boghi, prepares their forty-five degrees Celsius often
fields for the rains. It's touching forty- five degrees Celsius, put
building the new structure. The determination to stay
and she often looks up at the sky in exasperation. The first
is transparent.
shower has made the heat worse. Preparing the stony
The attitude of the villagers here is not entirely shaped
slopes for cultivation can’t be easy, but Boghi and Revaki,
by sentimentality. Few would fault them for that even if it
a relative of Luaria's, stick to it gamely. The men, led by
were so. By one estimate, of nearly twenty-six million
Bhava. the seniormost member of the clan in theJalia, are
Indians displaced by projects since 1951 over 40 per cent ,
are adivasis. In Orissa and Madhya Pradesh, that ratio has never go to work as wage labourers,' says Bhava. The
been even higher. That and the fact of being s ummari ly forest is our moneylender and banker. From its teak and
uprooted from their traditional homes is dismal enough. bamboo, we build our houses. From its riches we are able
But there are also sound economic reasons for their not to make our baskets and cots, ploughs and hoes. From its
wanting to move. trees, leaves, herbs and roots, we get our medicines. Our
‘There are innumerable things that we get from the cattle and goats, which are our wealth, graze here freely
forests here which we would have to pay for in Gujarat,’ as they have always done. For all these, we would have to
points out Luaria. ‘Who will compensate us for that?’ He pay money in Gujarat. Stay here for eight days and see
has a point. It is not even remotely possible to translate how much money you have to spend. Then stay eight days
into cash terms some of the many items the Bhil and in Kavant or any town in Gujarat and see how much you
Bhilala tribals obtain from the forest. ‘Our firewood comes have to spend.’
from the forest. Our chara (fodder) comes from there, our It proved impossible to make an accurate calculation.
herbs and medicines come from there, the mahua flowers But a few of these items were on sale at the haat (rural
we collect (for making wine) come from there. Our fish market) and we checked their prices there. We also made
come from the river down here. Which rehabilitation detailed enquiries about the other items. The results
scheme of theirs will even look at all these as our earnings, suggested that those moving to Gujarat would have to
as items to be recompensed?’ spend upwards of Rs.800 a month to sustain their present
So what does Luaria want from the government? lifestyles even partially. Include fodder costs and the
‘Nothing. We just want them to leave us alone. We will amount climbs further. This, among households whose
never be able to live anywhere else the way we live now. annual cash earnings would seldom exceed three to four
Can you deny that?’ I cannot. Not after spending three thousand rupees a year and are often much less.
days at Luaria’s house and more time in other villages in The point about fodder is crucial, since livestock is a
the region. In one instance, a family demonstrated how very major form of wealth here. ‘People are coming from
they obtained nearly twelve items of consumption from a Gujarat to our lands to graze cattle and cut firewood,’ says
single tree. Luaria’s sister-in-law, Janki. ‘What will we get if we go
In another (non-submergence) village in Wakner, a there?’ Bhava alone owns ‘60 to 70 goats, 14 cows and 10
family totted up nearly thirty items of consumption. They buffaloes. All of us also keep poultry. The goats are our
had drawn all these from the forest in the past week. These insurance. We may not have all that many dealings in
included mahua, imli, chironji, sitaphal, amla and mukha cash, but in crisis, we can always sell a goat for 500 to 600
ki sabzi. Also in the list were heguan kt sabzi, jatamada ki rupees. That’s how we manage here. If we go to Gujarat,
bqjhi, kuliar ki sabzi, goindhi bajhi and many other forms the banias and the patidars will crush us.’
of produce. ‘To begin with there has been virtually no development
The people of the river bank have an economy that is in these villages since independence,’ says Dr Amita
close to being self-sufficient. Even their trips to the haat Baviskar of the Delhi School of Economics. ‘On top of that
are to fetch a few essentials like salt. ‘We of the river bank now is the threat of displacement after years of oppression.
The sheer injustice of it is They were never

extraordinary.
consulted, never informed. They don't want to go to The house that Luaria built - 2
Gujarat.’
Dr Baviskar, a scholar with a Ph.D. thesis on problems
related to this area, also works with the Khedut Mazdoor
Chetna Sangath. The KMCS has organised advivasis in
nearly ninety-five villages of this region to fight for their JALSINDHI, Jhabua (M.P.): Members of every household
rights since 1982. While affiliated to the Narmada Bachao in this falia of Jalsindhi have gathered here, helping
Andolan (NBA), the KMCS activities go well beyond the Luaria build a new structure next to his house. This is to
anti-dam agitation. They mobilise the adivasis politically be a symbol of their defiance. A token of their refusal to
on a number of other issues such as land and rights of move in the face of the continued construction of the
access to forest resources. Sardar Sarovar Project. Luaria’s field and perhaps even
‘Jalsindhi’s declaration of choosing drowning to his house could be submerged any day now by the rising
moving may seem quixotic. It could even be seen as a waters of the Narmada. But the Bhilala tribal, his family
desperate gamble for the future, for a better deal,' says Dr and clan, continue to put up the new structure.
Baviskar. 'But it is also an incredibly sincere and brave The river bank community here is close to being a
fight.A symbol of people’s resolve to resist such arbitrary self-sufficient one. It has minimal links to the market. It
treatment. They know they can lose eveiything, but they’re needs the nearby forests far more. So in rejecting the
fighting.’ ‘rehabilitation’ package offered to them in Gujarat, the
‘This is my house,’ says Luaria, ‘and I don't want any adivasis know what they Eire doing. Their response flows
other. We’re staying.’ He may be fighting with his back to not only from sentimental attachment to their lands. It is
the walls he has just raised. And his eyes may be on the also based on sound economic factors. They obtain many
rising river.But Luaria’s heart is set on defending his items of consumption from their surroundings right now.
home. This is the house that Luaria built. In Gujarat, most of these would be inaccessible, or too
costly. Resettlement and rehabilitation deals here have not
even tried to look at these specific features of the adivasi
societies.
The other crucial factor ignored in the resettlement
plans is a calculation of the role that community labour
plays in the economies of adivasi societies. ‘Look at this
house we are building,' says Luaria. 'The others in our/alia
come here to help us build it. They have even brought their
own food. It was the same when Bhava built his house.
We do not have to pay for anything.'
All this gets destroyed when they are uprooted, says
Dr Amita Baviskar of the Khedut Mazdoor Chetna Then there are those like Kev Singh. He wants to move,
Sangath. As she points out, ‘It goes when they are shifted but officials do not classify him as a project-affected
and settled separately in Gujarat, not as one unit, but in person (PAP). They say his land is quite safe, a claim he
groups spread out all over the place.’ Dr Baviskar says, rejects. The government is lying when it says my land
‘First, it hurts them financially, thanks to the loss of won’t go down. Just look at the site. How can it not go
community labour. Secondly, it disrupts them culturally, down when the entire village will go under?’ And there are
since it breaks ties and bonds that sure central features of those like the patel of Jalsindhi, whom Bhava charges with
their very existence as societies. And thirdly, it leaves ‘bringing relatives from outside to claim compensation and
them, individually or in small groups, at the mercy of land in Gujarat’.
vested interests there. If resettled at all, the village as a There is another vital question. Is there, in fact,
whole would have to be put together for it to make any enough land in Gujarat to go around? The real
sense.’ The KMCS has been organising adivasis in nearly requirements of land seem to have been downplayed by
ninety-five villages in this region to fight for their rights both Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat governments for some
during the past twelve years. years now. Of 3,100 families to have been resettled in
‘Even in our weddings and funerals, everyone Gujarat from M.P. in 1992-93, land was found for only
contributes to the bride price or the funeral costs,’ says 1,190. In 1993-94, of 5,000 PAP families to be shifted to
Bhava, the seniormost member of the clan in this/aiia. ‘If Gujarat, just 986 were moved.
there is a quarrel then the elders of other villages sit and Popular resistance to the dam in Gujarat and
resolve the disputes. If uprooted from here and settled Maharashtra has seen some gains. One has been to focus
separately, how will we arrange for our weddings and attention on the nineteen and thirty-three villages to be
funerals? Who will come to settle our quarrels? If scattered submerged in those states. Nearly 193 villages will go
all over the place, we will never have the same rights to down in Madhya Pradesh. But most of the country knows
land as in this village.’ little about that. Many of these villages were never told of
It isn’t as if all have turned down the official
is their fate officially. How did they get to know of it? When
package. But even where a majority of families have said they saw Central Water Commission surveyors installing
‘yes’, as in the case of Chilakda village, the results have stone markers to indicate the reservoir level.
often been chaotic. Of the twenty-seven families who went The Madhya Pradesh government wants the proposed
from here to Kaveta village in Gujarat, several have height of the dam lowered from 455 to 436 metres. This
returned. They are angry over broken promises and has positive implications. The fields and homes of some
sub- standard land. ‘Only six of the families wish to remain 25,000 families will escape submergence. Yet, the lucky
there,’ says Ranja, an adivasi of Chilakda who c am e back ones would be mainly in the upper-caste dominated,
from Gujarat. 'But twenty-one want a change. All we seven mixed villages of the higher reaches, in Dhar and
brothers went happily at first. Then, things went wrong Khargaon districts. ‘The fully adivasi villages on the lower
and we got bad land.’ All of them say conditions at slopes would go anyway,’ points out Jayshree, a KMCS
resettlement sites are dismal. activist.
There some dispute about how many villages in

is
Jhabua will be submerged this year. The Narmada Valley Big dam, little water
Development Authority says there will be none. But the
collector. Mr Dharmadhikari, holds that nine villages
would be ‘temporarily’ submerged. And two, Sakarja and
Kakarsela, will go down for ever.
Several villages are yet to be formally told of the KUTKU, Palamau (Bihar): It’s a dam that’s still ’under
schedule of submergence. And no one seems really certain construction’ after twenty years. Estimated in 1972 to cost
of precisely how the submergence will unfold. For many, Rs.58 crores, the North Koel project, or ‘Kutku dam’ as
like Luaria, it could be a case of a one-year reprieve at the they call it here, would today cost over Rs.425 crores.
most. His field this year, his house the next. Some believe That’s more than three times Bihar’s entire irrigation
that Luaria and many like him would settle for degraded budget this year.
forest land within Madhya Pradesh. That would preserve
his access to natural resources. Which means his
resistance now could be a desperate gamble for a better
deal.
As the waters rise, so do the chances of Luaria and
his clan being forcibly moved. And with that, the likelihood
of their getting nothing at all while losing face with those
who opted to go to Gujarat. Multiply Luaria's case by ten
thousand, says one official, ‘and you have an idea of how
people really feel about moving. And it’s true of even a great
many who have accepted the shift mentally and want to
make a fresh start.’
Luaria’s sister-in-law Janki seems to sense why I am
taking so many photographs of the house. ‘Come back
after the rains,’ she sighs. You cam catch all of us sitting
on the roof.’ It’s all that might be left of the house that
Luaria built.
The 'Kutku Dam\ After twenty years it*s still 'under construction \ If completed, it
,
Palamau. At its best, the dam will irrigate less than 5,800
will bring little water to
hectares and generate a little over 20 MW of hydel power.
If completed, the Kutku dam will bring water to

little The lower sluices of thedam, which the villagers help
Palamau, which has often suffered drought during the me climb to look at, are in bad shape. In one, whole chunks
past three decades. It will irrigate less than 6,800 hectares of concrete appear to have fallen out of the roof. And that
in this district. And, at its best, the dam will generate a happened ‘after just one monsoon', asserts a villager. The
little over 20 MW of hydel power. other sluice has been sealed off at one end following
Those who will lose their homes if the dam comes up substantial damage. No inspections of the standards of
are mainly tribals and harijans. Some have already lost safety and construction work seem to have taken place.
their land. Officials say the dam will destroy fourteen There’s probably a good reason for that. My own inspection
villages. But the Chhotanagpur Samaj Vikas Sansthan ends with my slipping on rubble dislodged from a damaged
(CSVS), a non-govemmental organisation (NGO) fighting comer. I slide down twenty- six feet along the area in front
for the villagers, believes that over thirty villages would go. of the sluice, landing just inches away from the gutter.
‘Even the official maps of the project show this,’ points The anxiety of the villagers ends once it is clear I am
out Shatrughan Kumar, who heads the NGO in Palamau. bruised more in ego than in body. ‘You have had a unique
In all, nearly 14,000 people would lose their homes. These experience,’ laughs Baidyanath. ‘How many people fall
include Kisan, Kharwar, Oraon, Kurwa, Parhaiya, Birjiya down dams where there is not a single drop of water in
and Cheru tribals. Some Dushad and Bhuiya Harijans sight?’ The only water nearby is the narrow stream behind
would also be hit by the dam. the dam where people have rigged up fishing nets. ‘Not
The delays plaguing the construction of the 225-foot that there’s much of a catch now,’ says Baidyanath. ‘These
dam they are battling against baffle even the would-be fish are tourists.'
oustees. Their leader, Baidyanath Singh, bursts out Not a single senior official of the district favours the
laughing while talking to me about it: ‘Here we are, project. ‘If ever finished, the dam could irrigate 56,000
mobilising people with a sense of urgency. Yet, the things hectares outside Palamau. It will help Aurangabad and
we predict and know will happen often don’t happen. Or Gaya, though neither of those districts is as desperate as
they happen years later. It's crazy.’ Baidyanath heads the Palamau for water,' says one official. Then who is pushing
Mazdoor Kisan Mukti Morcha, a group leading the for the dam?
resistance to displacement. He may find day-to-day ‘If it ever gets built,’ says a senior official, ‘Kutku will
happenings surprising, but he has a clear idea on why the water the territory of the irrigation minister, Jagatanand.
project goes on at all. ‘The building of this dam,' he says, Funds have been held back for the portion that would go
‘continues for the sake of the contractors. There isn’t a towards Garwha district. The focus will now be on the
single other beneficiary.’ areas around the Sone barrage. That's where the
‘Very often,’ say villagers in the affected area, ‘work minister's constituency lies.’
stops for months at a stretch. Then the thekedar So the scheme for irrigating the minister’s
(contractor) goes to Patna, more money is released and constituency goes on in spurts, according to the
activity begins again. Crores of rupees from public funds availability of funds. But villagers in the affected zone face
have been squandered here.’ growing hardship. Sangeeta Singh, of Mandal village, who
in the resistance here, tells me: ‘The thekedar has

is active Many people in the project area have told me of broken
threatened us. “I will see how you can stop this dam,” he promises. Of jobs, schools and compensation that never
said.’ came. ‘There is not one school that works or any
The delays and the changes in blueprint are not the anganwadi for the thirty villages in this area. Nor is there
only aspects of the dam with a slightly crazy flavour. one functioning hospital,’ said Moorthy, one of the women
Several villagers have received ‘compensation’ of one or activists of the resistance movement here.
two rupees per tree on the land they have lost. They have The record does suggest that the fate of those hit by
cheques that prove this. other projects in the district will not be very different. And
‘Just imagine,’ exclaims Shatrughan Kumar of the such schemes are several.The Kadhavan reservoir plan
CSVS. ’The land acquisition officer issuing these cheques will uproot over forty villages. The Kanhar project will
knows that these sal trees have a value of Rs.700 per cubic destroy an equal number. The Auranga scheme would
foot.' He also says the oustees were in many cases paid surely bring much needed water to Palamau, but would
only Rs.6,000 per acre of land taken over in 1 984. The real displace at least fifteen villages. Only the Talhe river
value of the land at that time was around Rs.30,000 per project will displace nobody. It can irrigate up to 8,000
acre or more. —
hectares within a cost of Rs.20 crores infinitely more
The villagers do not believe the present district set-up rational than the Kutku dam.
to be hostile to them. They even see the deputy ‘Yet, on the Talhe river scheme, there has been no
commissioner, Santosh Matthew, as quite sympathetic. action, no funds for it,’ observes Vashist Narain Singh. He
They say he once brought along a senior minister to hear says that, in any case, the state no longer takes the whole
out their grievances. ‘But here,’ says one of the anti-dam issue of irrigation as a serious responsibility. ‘Why new
villagers, ‘the thekedar bypasses the administration. He projects? Even existing works are in a dangerous state of
goes to Patna, pulls some strings and is back in business disrepair. Where Bihar used to have Rs. 350-400 crores
once again.’ allotted to the irrigation department annually, it now allots
In Daltonganj, Vashist Narain Singh scoffs at the Rs.120 crores. Of this, around Rs.80 crores goes on
claimed benefits of the dam. Singh is a highly respected establishment costs. Only about Rs.40 crores goes on
former works manager of the Bihar State Construction projects. Maintenance has come to a standstill. No officer
Corporation. He is also probably the foremost expert on has received his travel allowance for three years. All the
irrigation in Palamau. Singh sees the North Koel scheme vehicles are idle, so important repair work remains
as wasteful. He believes that what is really needed are undone.’
small dams. ‘These should have linkages to perennial Activity at the Kutku dam site won’t stop completely.
sources of water via a moderately big project or two like — The thekedar and the minister will see to that. As Moorthy,
those at Auranga or Kanhar.’ Singh is right about the gains standing against the backdrop of the huge white elephant,
that a couple of the medium-big projects could bring. But told me: ‘Yahan dam bandh ho sakta hai, lekin thekedari
within the present context, could a fair deal be ensured nahin bandh hogi.' (Here the dam might be stopped, but
for those who would lose their homes as a result? not this business of contractors.)
Postscript
Weeks he took me around the dam site and the affected

after
Neema: Portrait of a village doomed
areas, Baidyanath Singh, poet, singer and leader, was
murdered. He was killed by a squad of men in uniforms normally
associated with the Maoist Communist Centre. The MCC is an
ultra-left wing group active in the area and has a long record of NEEMA, Godda (Bihar): Neema village has a real problem
violence. But Baidyanath’s friends do not think they were behind with dust. There’s dust in every eye and nostril and the
the murder. They think that contractors in league with irrigation water is thick with it. Liberal portions of it get cooked with
department touts were responsible and that the uniforms were the food. It colours the clothes hung out to dry and creeps
fakes. The resistance to the dam continues. And Baidyanath’s inside people’s apparel. Layers of dirt lie on the normally
voice remains among the poor people he led. It also remains in sparkling- clean houses of the Santhal tribals.
the beautiful songs he sang through the Palamau night, which I Neema is surrounded on all sides by Asia’s largest
recorded on two ninety-minute cassette tapes. single -pit opencast mining venture. That is the Rajmahal
Coal Mining Project, Lalmatiya (of the Eastern Coalfields
Ltd.).To the village’s east is the mine, throwing up an
average of 1 1,000 tonnes of coal each day. To the west is
the plant itself. To Neema's south is the project’s main
workshop and stores, functioning round the clock. And to
its north, the village faces what seems practically an
artificial hill range. Here, 120-tonne and 170-tonne
—
dumpers pile up mountains of ‘overburden’ the surface
crust of earth torn up to reach the seams of coal beneath.
All but merging into the Rajmahal Hills, these
mammoth dumps provide an odd backdrop to the biggish
village. Attractive houses line the slush-choked lanes.
These are typical of Santhal architecture and built of mud
and other traditional materials. By one estimate, there are
over 4,000 people in Neema. About a third of the
inhabitants are Santhals. The rest are from other
communities, mainly Muslims.
Some of the mud houses are really beautiful, even
through the haze of dust that still settles on their walls.
The Santhals know how to build for heat. The walls, often
thirty inches thick, make

the spacious interiors cool and Thus, they had to be absorbed into the workforce anyway.
pleasant though the weather outside is intolerably muggy. For them, the jobs-for-land rule didn’t mean much besides
Urban architects could learn a few things here. My interest losing their land. And for the village’s Mohalis, at the
in the houses amuses Bambihari Murmu, a tribal bottom of the scheduled caste heap, it spelt disaster. They
resident
of Neema village. ‘Yes, take photographs of them,’ he says. were mostly landless or held pathetic fragments well under
We will need them too. Soon, these houses could be gone.’ the two-acre cut-off point.
Neema is a village that knows it is doomed. Some of them will receive ‘compensation’ of Rs. 1 ,500
The coal project has affected as many as eighteen to Rs.2,000 for their huts. They cannot rebuild similar
villages, twelve of them within the mine boundary. Neema, structures at three times the price. Oddly enough, all this
Hijukitha and Ghati Simra are the worst hit. Neema is the occurs in a district falling within the Santhal Parganas
of these. The approach to these villages becomes division. Here land is not only non-transferable, it cannot
a nightmare during the monsoon. Coal dust, waste and even be gifted away. But it did change hands, under the
slurry mix with endless stretches of mud and muck. Coal Bearing Act, as the central government took over the
The
mess floats in huge puddles that are partly the result of land in the '80s through a notification by the President of
mining operations in Godda, one of the country’s poorest India. When the project began, Neema’s residents had no
districts. clue to its enormity, scope and likely results. Realisation
But Neema s is not a story of would-be ‘oustees’ taking came in as the land went out. Acquisition was swift and
their last stand. Some residents are employees of the very relentless.
project that has taken their land and which is about to ‘They were efficient in that,’ says Babaji, an articulate,
displace them. And most are anxious to leave. ‘Do angry young Santhal tribal. ‘But in what else? We have no
you
tfrhik we want to breathe this all our lives?' water, no electricity and the dust is destroying our lives.
asks Jainarain
Singh, a resident and project employee. They want to drive us out but even they don't know where
Neemaites feel swindled by a scheme drawn up we ought to go.’ We have conducted our interviews across
originally to benefit them and other locals. They ceded two nights, using a torch and candlelight for hours.
over
a hundred acres of land in return for jobs. However, the Though power lines exist, even the four hours of current
central government kept changing the criterion. At normally available has been cut off by the mine’s
first,
those giving up an acre or above for the project were given management. That, says one official, is a ‘punishment for
jobs. Then, this changed briefly to a rule of one stealing our electricity’.
job per
family. Lastly, the government allotted one job for The chief general manager of the Eastern Coalfields
anybody
ceding two acres. Ltd, (ECL), Rajmahal, R. C. Sharma, says project
Many of Neema’s residents were already workin with authorities would shift Neema and treat it the same way
g
the old underground-incline mines of the Lalmatiya as Bara Simra. That is the one village seeing a serious
collieries that preceded the opencast operation of the '80s. resettlement effort. But villagers point out why Bara Simra
was given that treatment:

the village directly obstructs the Marandai, ‘with our hard work we transformed this land
mine’s expansion. Sources within the management too
and made it worth much more. At their rates, we cannot
confirmed this.
buy even ten per cent of the same area at current prices
The ECL management seems set to play up its anywhere.’ Land can cost up to Rs.52,000 per acre now.
achievement in Bara Simra. It is even planning a
Even that meagre compensation did not reach all, say
promotional video cassette on it. But this cuts no ice with
the villagers. In Hijukitha, many said they had received
any of the other villagers who believe that there are also
only a quarter of the compensation sum. They are
political factors involved in the favours shown to this single demanding interest on the remainder since over a decade
village.Bara Simra is home to at least one prominent local
has passed. Sharma, however, says some villagers had
leader of a Jharkhand faction. I met his brother at the
huge simply not collected their cheques and that these had
residence that was coming up for his family.
lapsed with time.
Engineers and architects assigned by the ECL
My first visit to Hijukitha was eventful. A wall and two
management have helped in the construction of his house doors came crashing down to the reverberations of the
as also that of his brother. His brother, the leader,
is at blasting in the mine.
the moment ‘underground’ since their faction has called Sharma does not deny the hardships faced by the
fora Jharkhand bandh’, leading to a crackdown by the
villagers of Neema. Indeed, he describes their state as
government. But the work on their houses does not stop.
‘miserable and heart-breaking*. Even so, no eviction notice
The links between some union leaders and the ECL
has been issued to them so far. They are playing a waiting
management are explicit in this village.
game,’ says one resident. ‘They feel we will realise it is
‘They have no intention of giving us a fair deal,’ says
impossible to live in these conditions and simply go away.’
one mine employee back in Neema. ‘Bara Simra’s shifting
But it isn’t quite so simple. Unlike in other projects
reflected the priorities of the project, not ours.'
where people have been displaced, those pushed out here
Thousands of lives are being altered forever. Despite
won’t fade away. Instead, they could report for duty at the
this, the ECLs Rajmahal project does
not even have a factory next morning, making an explosive situation even
rehabilitation department. That task is handled
part-time more complicated.
by officers already holding heavy duties in other As Ram Swarup, a prominent trade union leader
departments. It shows the ECL’s says a local
priorities,’ among the miners, puts it: ‘Some are getting jobs, but all
trade unionist.
are being uprooted. Not merely from their homes, but from
The compensation rate for the land was fixed in the
their culture and history as well.’ One taste of that came
early 80s. It varied from Rs.3,000 per acre for
the lowest when the waste dumps swallowed the Jeharthan, the
grade to Rs. 17,500 for the best. Much of the land
was sacred tree of the Santhals and one of their burial
classified in the lower grade. Taken into account
were the grounds.’Yet,' says Swarup, ‘none of these villages has ever
prices of the plots ages ago. But,' says villager
Mistry been served an eviction notice formally.’ The idea now
seems be to evade issues of compensation altogether.

to one part of their battle. They had won the right to be recognised
Ram Swarup’s United Coal Workers Union (an and compensated after being shifted with dignity. The plan of
AITUC-affUiate], is fighting not only for its own members, making life so hard that they would just abandon their
but for all the displaced and affected.* ‘Why divide the —
homes thereby sparing the ECL rehabilitation costs—failed.
poor?' he asks.
Neema has other worries. Access to the hospital ten
kilometres away has become tough even as health
problems mount. The attitude of the Central Industrial
Security Force (CISF) outfit stationed in the area does not
help much. I spoke to frightened women in Neema
terrorised by the CISF just hours earlier while fetching
water. And to Abu Talif, kicked and beaten up by them
while using the latrine area on the village border. Talif was
still stammering with fear when telling us of his ordeal.
S. Upadhyay, manager. Projects & Planning

Department, conceded that rehabilitation was ‘a process
fraught with difficulties. The social problem must be
admitted. However, they are not mentally prepared to shift
though they talk of it and though we are promising better
facilities and sites.’ But the project's track record on such
promises over years has not been inspiring.
As Bambihari Murmu puts it: ‘We were told some
years ago of the great achievements ahead, that it was all
for us, that we were making progress. Today, many of us
have no jobs and all of us have lost our lands. We have
only the dust. Look at our houses. Will we be given
something like these when Neema is rubble?’
From dust unto dust seems a frighteningly prophetic
cliche for Neema.
Postscript
When I last heard from them, the villagers of Neema had won
Arid the Meek Shall Inherit the Earth 127
And silent trees speak
CUT-OFF AREA, Malkangiri (Orissa): Acre upon acre of

dead forest. Trees without a single leaf that still seem to
—
speak sticking out above the silent waters, decades after
they were submerged. A reminder of the ninety-one
villages swept away by the Balimela reservoir and other
Machkund river projects. The ferry, noisy till this point,
falls silent. It moves slowly because it has to. Built to
transport sixty-six people, it is carrying close to 370 just
now.
The passengers’ minds seem to speak: here people
lived.Here, once, children played. For some on the ferry,
that was a personal experience before their villages made
way for a progress they never shared. And as the launch
traverses the dead forest, we approach one of the loneliest
parts of the Indian mainland: the 152 villages isolated by One of the loneliest parts of the Indian mainland, the 152 villages isolated by the
the Balimela and accompanying projects. A land so remote Balimela and accompanying projects constitute a zone so remote that even the
official name for it is The Cut-OffArea', Acre upon acre ofdead forest, trees without
that even the official name for it is The Cut-Off Area’. a single leaf, still stick out of the silent waters
„
Perhaps no other river of comparable size produces so

much hydel power as the humble Machkund. It chums as as Rs.4 for hours of weeding work in the fields.
little
up 720 MW annually—shared by Orissa and Andhra Isolation goes with deprivation here, ensuring that people
—
Pradesh through different projects. The 152 villages, have no voice. So the services extended to them are
completely isolated, afford two states huge amounts of minimal. If you leave for the Cut-Off Area for the smallest
electricity by their sacrifice. Yet, it is virtually impossible of chores from Chitrakonda, you can only return on the
to find a single household with electricity in any of these third day, really speaking. The single launch operating
villages. Even the semi-pucca stmcture in Dharlabeda today is old, overloaded, dilapidated and dangerous. It sets
village where we spend the night has never seen a single out late in the morning and will take many hours to cover
bulb. Never mind that it is the panchayat office. its sixty- two -kilometre route, stopping at several points
For those who live here are among the poorest of between Janbai and Jantri. We board at Chitrakonda and
Indians. A woman in some of the cut-off villages can earn head for Palaspadar.
Along the way, people from the cut-off villages
approach the launch in small boats. The launch becomes Landing at Palaspadar, we walk ten kilometres to
—
a moving market place and their only contact with the reach Dharlabeda, passing through lonely, beautiful
outside world. Boarding it are Gadabas, Parojas (both woods. The thick, whispering forests give you a sense of
ancient tribes) and even Bengali refugees from erstwhile what even the submerged area must have once looked like.
East Pakistan settled in this region after the 1965 war. In Dharlabeda, the Village Level Worker (VLW) from
They buy things they need from the launch staff and sell Chitrakonda is distributing free sacks of groundnut. He
fish and other produce to them. takes everyone’s signature in advance, but leaves blank
A Bengali couple, having rowed a good distance to the column stating the quantity given to each family. The
reach the craft, are now bargaining with passengers and VLWs judgement is arbitrary and he does not use a
staff. After a while, the man returns to his boat and rows weighing balance though one is available here.
off, leaving his wife behind to conclude the transactions. All the sacks of groundnut have this painted on them:
That will take time. So she will get off a few stops further Do Not Accept Unless Sack Is Closed and Sealed. All the
—
down the Cut-Off Area and walk back many kilometres sacks arrived open, with no trace of a seal. 'The
to her home through the woods along the river bank in the groundnut,’ says village head Saduram, one of the area’s
gathering darkness. few educated individuals, ‘is given out to encourage people
People pay bribes to get jobs on this ferry. You can to grow it. But mostly it gets eaten, people here are too
hawk wares at outrageous prices to a captive clientele in poor.’ People like Arjun Pangi, for instance, a Paroja tribal
this seller's market. And the launch staff are a smart in whose hut we spend part of the evening. Pangi and
bunch of entrepreneurs. Beedis are probably cheaper in family are so poor that ‘even the moneylender will not lend
Bombay, but those living in the Cut-Off Area have no us anything. He feels we can never repay him even
choice. Sometimes, the exchange is on a barter basis on partially,' says Pangi.
this launch in Malkangiri. The moneylender’s reading seems right. There is not
Down the Machkund valley, you might run into the a single possession of any value in the hut.
Didayis, a small tribe of less than 5,000 people not found —
The coolie work he does when there is work to
anywhere else. The river itself goes on to take the name —
do fetches Pangi perhaps two kilograms of rice for a day’s
Sileru further down. It also becomes the boundary at some labour. Pangi and his family also go out and collect roots,
points between Orissa and Andhra Pradesh. Things looked berries, leaves and bamboo shoots. These make up the
quite different before the Machkund hydro-electric bulk of their diet on some days. ‘Our time has gone,’ says
—
project one of the earliest. The old gazetteers wrote of his friend Anandram Khilo. ‘But perhaps one day our
what they believed was one of the greatest sights in all children, if they get an education, will lead a better life
India. The Machkund flinging itself over 300-foot walls of than this.’
rock into a boiling pool hidden by dense clouds of spray Throughout the Cut-Off area are villages with schools
that painted a permanent rainbow where they met but children too poor to go to them. Also, people who get
sunlight. The Balimela power project, which began in steady work for no more than four months in the year.
1962-63, ended that. There is also a thirst for land among the worst off. ‘If I had
officialrecord shows that the state spent Rs.35 lakhs on

just two to three acres,’ says Pangi, life would be fine.’ But
‘resettlement’. That’s Rs.500 per individual if we accept
what about the officials who are supposed to come here
the figure of 1 ,200 families. The amount spent on the ‘staff
and make such things possible?
vehicle on ‘salary to be paid to revenue department’ and
Saduram laughs: ‘The collector has come here more ,
on ‘shifting charges’, was Rs.8.2 lakhs. That is well over

than once. He means well. But many other officials just
double the amount spent on 'building(s)’ and on land for
sit in Chitrakonda and send in their reports. Or they come
buildingfs)’ for the thousands evicted.
up to the landing areas and send runners to call people
As we sit in the semi-darkness of Pangi’s hut, offered
from different villages to go there and meet them. When
food by people who go hungry half the year, Angra Hanthal
an official summons you, there is no choice. Once a party
tells us: Many who lost land in the submerged area were
of journalists came and sat with the officials on the river
never looked after. In the early years, they told us our
bank. Some villagers had to walk over twenty kilometres
names would come in the record a little later on. In our
taking food for them. After that they went back and wrote,
innocence, we believed these things. Some of us, after
I think, about how we live here—without ever being to our
coming here, occupied some land, half an acre to an acre,
villages.’
maybe. We even got pattas, but the land quality is poor.
’Do the people who live here have any reason to feel
Only the forest is the great provider here.’
they are Indians?’ asks Kawasi Kamraj, an emerging tribal
‘After coming here,' says his wife, ‘there were so many
leader. Kawasi being with us made our stay in the Cut-Off
things the children needed we couldn’t provide them. We
Area possible. ‘In what way do they share in the national
had no money and even if we had money, we had no place
life? Governments may change, their lives don’t. These
people are invisible, though there are some 30,000 of
to buy them—medicines, clothes, foodstuffs, so many
things. You see them grown up now, but coming here hurt
them. They are untouched by any of the gains of the
us. hurt our children worse.’
It
projects they sacrificed for.’
There are some signs of development, though. The
On the return journey, the same silence falls. The
trees, their branches like so many shrivelled fingers, seem
sarpanchas are building new, pucca houses for
themselves.
to point atus accusingly. Thousands of acres of forest with
prime teak and other rich produce were destroyed here
In official reckoning, 1,200 families, mostly adivasi,
forever. Their total worth was several times the Rs.57
were evicted to make way for the Balimela project in
crores spent on the Balimela power project. The combined
1962-63. This figure appears flawed. For one thing, it does
investment in all development projects in Orissa since
not seem to have recorded correctly the number really
independence is eclipsed by the commercial value of
evicted. Next, the figure ignores many thousands outside
renewable timber and forest produce lost in making way
the designated submergence zone who were devastated
for them. The gung-ho attitude of the early decades is
when their life support systems were literally drowned. It
captured in the ugly concrete slab at the Chitrakonda pier.
also disregards those in the Cut-Off Area who suffered all
This announces, almost proudly, that the number of
the adverse effects of displacement without being ‘evicted’.
villages submerged by the project was ninety-one. All
Even those evicted were hardly compensated. The old
Beyond
around, the hills show signs of electric installations. But
in the Cut-Off Area, there is only darkness.
the
Margin
Survival strategies of the poor

W hat do people do during the 200-240 days

no What do those do who
agriculture in their regions?
anyway? Is there a way
haven’t the option of agriculture
out for those ignored by development schemes or, in fact,
when
—
there is
devastated by them? What are the survival strategies of the

poor? What are their coping mechanisms?
They are many. Some of them quite ingenious, all of them
back-breaking. Yet the resilience of millions of rural Indians is
truly astonishing. So is their will to survive —and support their

families honourably. Even where they lose out, they try and run
their lives with dignity. And lose out, they often do.
A look at what it is they do—
and how poorly they are
—
rewarded for it can be compelling. The brutalising grind they go
through works towards reducing them to beasts of burden.
Yet, their hard work, their dignity in the face of such
circumstances, and their quest for self-reliance, begs one
question. Is there anything these people cannot achieve if given
the right opportunities? If equipped with what quite a few other
societies have given their own citizens? That is, among other
—
things a genuine land reform, education, health, shelter, work
opportunities? At the end of many months of recording their
strategies, only one answer stood out: with those basics in place,
they can and will change their world. And ours.
He shins up using his hands and legs. The risks

The risky climb of Ratnapandi accompanying him are also, quite obviously, far greater.
Once up a tree, Ratnapandi cuts into it near the base
of the branches and pre-empts the fruit, by forcing open
its bud. This allows the juice to flow into a pot that the
tapper fixes below the incision. He replaces the pot every
RAMNAD (Tamil Nadu): Ratnapandi Nadar has what must few hours, when it gets filled. When he goes up,
rank as one of the tougher jobs in the world. He climbs Ratnapandi adds a powder derived from calcium
fifty date palm trees daily, some of them thrice a day to carbonate to the flowing juice.
tap juice for panatvellam (date palm jaggery). That could The powder is the catalyst that converts the extract
— —
mean 150 trips up and down trees that might be twenty into date palm jaggery. Without the powder, it would
feet in height. His work begins at 3 in the morning and become toddy, since the process is otherwise identical.
lasts up to sixteen hours. He can earn as little as five to Rani, twenty-five, Ratnapandi’s wife, boils and cooks the
eight rupees a day. juice he collects in their huge open vessel. She then pours
Ratnapandi, twenty-seven, is a panaiyeri (palm the paste into empty coconut shells where it solidifies into
tree-climbing) Nadar, as his sub-group within the Nadars neatly shaped lumps of date palm jaggery. Most people
is known. But a few thousand like him do not share the
find palm jaggery much sweeter and of better quality than
prosperity of the better off sections of that hard-working cane jaggery.
community. That is reserved for the middlemen, traders That huge vessel they use is their only possession of
and wholesalers in the jaggery business. any worth. They own no land and their hut has no
In his village of Kavakulam in Ramnad, Ratnapandi belongings of even mini mal value. They sell their jaggery
does not own or control a single one of the trees he risks to a commission agent tharagar to whom they are already
( )
his neck to climb. He has never gained fro m any indebted. This ensures a much lower price for the tappers
anti-poverty schemes and enjoys no risk insurance in a than what the agent will command on the market. But the
trade where a single slip could spell death. While shinning panaiyeri Nadars are not only very poor, they are also quite
up, he does not have even the protective hoop ru nning backward, and often illiterate.
around the tree that his counterparts in Kerala use. He ‘Look at the amount he earns for the kind of work he
cannot tap the trees for toddy as that is illegal in Tamil does!’ says Rani. ‘And look at him!' Ratnapandi does look
Nadu. So he taps them for jaggery. sickly. Most of the panaiyert Nadars seem prone to severe
On a lighter day, Ratnapandi has to attend to at least muscular pains, asthma, skin diseases and stress.
forty trees. Even if these were shorter ones, between fifteen
Though some continue to labour for decades, the strain of
and twenty feet, it means he could be climbing up to 5,000 the profession mostly destroys their working capacity
feet a day. This is roughly equivalent to walking up and
earlier.
down a building of 250 floors daily, using the staircase. Karukavel Nadar, twenty-two, and his two associates
Only Ratnapandi isn’t using a staircase. Nor even a ladder. in Porpandipuram village in Kadaladi block are slightly
138 Everybody Loves a Good Drought Beyond the Margin 139
better off. They have obtained a loan of R&, 3,000 and Karukavel and his friends have taken the loan from
taken 150 trees on contract from an absentee landlord. their commission agent at an interest of 36 per cent per
They jointly work the trees for the six-month season that annum. The same man is also their wholesaler. They can’t
ends in September. Each climbs forty to fifty trees, some manage such interest rates and soon owe him money. So
thrice a day like Ratnapandi. Unfortunately, the deal does they have to sell their jaggery to him at prices held
—
not work in their favour and is so structured that it never artificially low. With the state uninterested in crushing
can. usury, they have little chance of escaping the tharagar
system so prevalent in this former zamindari region
perhaps the poorest and most backward district of
Tamil Nadu.
‘If we had a choice, we would quit this job,’ says
Karukavel. With no other skills or opportunities, they have

little choice. In the first two months of the season, each of
the three could make up to Rs. 600 monthly, or even

slightly more, by collecting eight to ten kilograms of juice
daily. The flow of juice begins to drop towards the end of
the season and they are able to extract only one or two
kilos of juice per day.
Though the middlemen get the benefits, the tappers
bear all expenses incurred in making the jaggery. The
powder derived from calcium carbonate costs three rupees
for two litres and they could spend up to Rs.60 or even
Rs.90 a month on this. Then there is the firewood for
boiling and cooking the juice. The cost of this varies, but
they could shell out around Rs.15 on firewood to produce
1 0- 1 5 kg of jaggery. As Karukavel points out: ‘It is actually
cheaper to produce toddy. We don’t have to incur any of

these costs on that substance!’
Since they get only Rs.4 to Rs.5 per kg ofjaggery, their
earnings decline to Rs.5 to Rs.8 a day in August and
September. The amount of work remains the same,
though. The middlemen get roughly Rs. 1 2 per kg ofjaggery
for which the tappers have risked their lives. Meanwhile,
Karukavel Nadar at work. That means climbing fifty trees thrice a day in peak
season. The palm Jaggery tappers ofRamnad use only their hands and legs They .
the loan and other expenses erode their modest earnings
do not have even the protective hoop running round the tree that their counterparts during the months of April and May.
in Kerala use, A single slip could mean death.
even these low earnings are of some help to them

Yet, unless we can break the debt cycle, place them in control
as they will be out of work after September, Steeped in of these trees and fight for decent prices.’ Until then, the
debt, they have no means of repaying the loan of Rs 3 000
. , panaiyeri Nadars may not be exactly out on a limb, but
They fear unseasonal rain as it would destroy any earnings they are certainly up the right trees for the wrong reasons.
they could possibly make. No member of the panalyeri
community here has a single set of clothes in good
condition.
During the off-season the tappers do what they call
—
‘coolie work’ for a pittance —
in Ramnad's exploitative salt
pans. Such development as has touched Ramnathapuram
(or Ramnad) seems to have bypassed the community. At
the age of sixty, Thangavelu Nadar of Kavakulam still has
to climb twenty to twenty- five trees daily to earn a living.
He has been doing this work for over forty years now.
A very large number tapper families in
of the
Kavakulam appear to have migrated this summer to
Thanjavur. It seems illegal toddy tapping is still on over
there. Many need some work to be able to pay off their
debts. In Raninad, every one of the panaiyeri Nadars I
interview is heavily indebted. After a while, it doesn’t
matter how much jaggery they produce. They are not only
repaying loans but are also selling the panaivellam at
absurdly low prices to the middlemen. They have to. That’s
the result of other debts incurred to be able to eat daily.
The arduous nature of their work means they cannot
reduce food intake beyond a point. They must have fish
and rice,' says Rani, ‘so we are always borrowing money
to keep going.* That deepens the debt trap. Yet, even the
‘fish and rice' meal we see Ratnapandi consume seems
absurdly meagre when compared to the rigours of his
work.
’They have the toughest job, the lowest pay and the
maximum danger says a Tamil Nadu Kisan Sabha
,’
activist. ‘But no development schemes —

and there aren't
—
any, anyway will help improve their conditions. Not
Recycling energy, Godda style
LALMATIYA, Godda (Bihar): Kishan Yadav pays Rs. 1,200

fora bicycle with one pedal. This odd transaction
concluded, he spends Rs.200 to reinforce its bars. Then,
he either removes the chain or hangs it loose and tears the
seat upwards, towards the sky.
Yadav is now ready to use his bicycle. Not so much for
—
cycling as yet that can be difficult without a chain but—
as a trolley for cariying as much as 250 kg of coal across
distances of forty to sixty kilometres. For his hazardous
labours, he earns up to Rs.10 a day, barely a third of the
minimum wage in Bihar.
Yadav go from Lalmatiya to Godda and back,
will
taking fully three days in walking, resting and hawking
time. A more strenuous form of self-employment is hard
to think up, yet nearly 3,000 families in Godda are
dependent on it.
Not all the koilawallahs, or cyclewallahs as they are
known, will remove one pedal or the chain, but they will
reinforce the bars and tear the seat upwards. ‘They will
learn,' says Yadav, a trifle contemptuously. ‘That right side
For all the hazardous labour involved in pushing up to 250 kg
of coal across
pedal will break and the chain, if not loosened, will cause distances over forty kilometres, the Godda cyclewallahs could earn less than Rs. 10
obstruction.’ —
a day barely a third of the minimum wage in Bihar*
Only after he sells his coal can Yadav restore the pedal koilawallahs cart loads of 200 to 250 kg, but some claim
and chain and cycle back to Lalmatiya where he buys his they occasionally pull even heavier loads.
stuff. He cannot do this crushing trip more than twice a Officialdom terms their trade an ‘illegal’ activity. Why?
week. Sometimes, the koilawallahs journey to Baunsi in Because they purchase coal from scavengers who scour
Banka district, sixty kilometres away, or even till Rajaun, the waste dumps of the Rajmahal Coal Mining Project,
eighty kilometres away, all the while pushing their huge Lalmatiya. The mountains of waste soil the project creates
loads on foot with muscle-tearing effort. Usually, the contain almost three per cent of low grade coal.
‘In fact,’ admits a top Rajmahal project official, ‘were physically intolerable journey at the best of times, it
itnot for the scavengers, that coal would remain unutilised seemed hellish in the wretchedly sultry weather. They
in the waste dumps. And, but for the cyclewallahs, would moved slowly along miserable roads where they often had
never reach the people of Godda, mostly poor consumers, to push their back-breaking loads up unyielding inclines.
as an extremely cheap energy source. It is a national The koilawallahs move in lines of up to twenty. The
saving.’ ‘fellow travellers’ are essential because, if one of them
Issues tend to get confused because there are so many stumbles, he can’t get started without assistance. Besides,
unlawful activities relating to coal-mining. However, three each needs help when fording long puddles or mounting
main illegal forms stand out in the extraction and sale of steep inclines.. I watched Yadav cross one such stretch
coal:
aided by his friends. He then ‘parked’ his cycle by planting
a stout stick under the sacks and went back to help the
• Theft from the depots of the Rajmahal project and piracy
next man across.
while the coal is in transit. But nobody has ever accused
The koilawallahs carry two meals with them. Just a
the cyclewallahs of that.
—
bit of rice with slivers of stale vegetable thrown in and no
pulses. Each will spend a further Rs. 15 on food during the
• Illegalmining controlled by the powerful coal mafia
three days it requires to sell their load and make the
aided by corrupt officials. That is certainly not run by
journey both ways.
cyclewallahs like Yadav or Prahlad Prasad Sah earning
From a group that has stopped on the edge of Godda
less than Rs.12 daily.
for a meal, I leam this is a multi-caste activity. Barring
Bra hmin s and Rajputs, almost all Godda castes are into
• The scavenging of coal from the waste dumps by very
‘recycling’ coal. Manto Manjhi is a harijan, travelling
poor people. It is from them (or via the dados controlling
alongside Prahlad and Arun Sah who are banias. There
them) that the cyclewallahs mainly get their coal. These
are the people, mostly women, largely responsible for are also Yadavs, Koeris, Santhals and a host of others.
what the official calls a ‘national saving'. Economic necessity seems to have broken down social
barriers.
As a senior Rajmahal official admits: ‘About 1,000 Why stick to this excruciating trade when even work
cyclewallahs function on a given day. No one manages on government development projects pays more? Aren’t
more than two trips a week. If we calculate all the coal they aware that the daily min m um wage in Bihar is now
i
“illegally" sold by the koilawallahs in a whole year, it won’t Rs.30.50? There is derisive laughter. ‘That's for the
equal two days production at Lalmatiya.' contractors,’ says Manjhi. ‘Where will they pay us that
Starting outside Lalmatiya, I tracked the cyclewallahs much for working on government projects? Even for Rs.20,
along the route to Godda, forty kilometres away. Though we would do other work.’
the distance is not much, they need sin overnight halt. A The economics of their own trade is startling and a
superficial look can be most misleading. When

I first ran
then operate within town limits. The koilawallahs are
into Kishen Yadav, he was Rs.105 from a
collecting
sceptical, fearing this will only lead to their unique form
housewife in Godda town. That seemed a handsome of self-employment being scrapped. This is their survival
enough sum for a one-shot sale. It was only after days of strategy and they intend to stick to it. Even if it means
working with them that the costs involved in the exercise reinventing the wheel, Godda style.
became clearer. The koilawallahs buy up to 250-300 kg of
coal for Rs.30 at Lalmatiya. Then, they pay Rs.5 each as
rangdari (extortion money) to local thugs. Next, Rs. 10 goes
as hafta (regular ‘cut’ or bribe payment) to the police. That
is, Rs.2 per cycle at five police posts between Lalmatiya
and Godda. Each spends Rs.15 on food and necessities

during the three -day trip.
‘As much as ten to fifteen rupees per trip goes on
maintenance of our cycles,' says Arun Sah. ‘The
ball-bearings wear out rapidly and we also have to change
tubes every three months, sometimes even tyres.’ Having
spent around Rs.75, they get about Rs.100 to Rs.105 for
the whole load in Godda (in Patna, it could fetch upwards
—
of Rs.300). That leaves them with Rs.30 their earnings
for three days. Since they can do this only twice a week,
their weekly earnings will not exceed Rs. 60-70, or eight to
ten rupees a day. They could get as much as Rs.150 or
more for their load in far off Rajaun. But that's a hard trip
to make more than once a week.
‘Cyclewallahs are prime candidates for TB, severe
chest pain, tom muscles, respiratory ailments and a
number of other illnesses,' says Dr P.K. Daradhiyar of
Godda. He often counts them among his patients. Prahlad
Sah lost a month due to illness, fairly common for the
koilawallahs. He also lost a bicycle when the police decided
to confiscate it.
hope to create a system bringing coal

District officials
to Godda town by tmck. They say the cyclewallahs could
into the making of beedis.

The leaf that topples governments By 5.30 a.m. the edge of the forest near Kantaroli
— —
village reached after a four- kilometre walk presents a
spectacular sight. Dozens of women, children and men are
moving swiftly, plucking tendu leaves with assembly -line
precision, a small army of human bees working a forest
KANTAROLI, Surguja (M.P.): Botanists call it Dyospyros
hive.
melanoxylon. Manufacturers call it beedi. Traders call it
As the season, which won’t last more than six weeks,
power and the poor call it survival.
profits, politicians call it
goes by, the walks to the forest get longer, the children tire
Everybody else calls it tendu patta and it is the leaf
out faster and the load on the women who have to get back
that can change governments in Madhya Pradesh.
to many other chores gets heavier. Still, they have to stick
As an issue, it may not have had the high profile of
to it, since the earnings from this will help tide them over
Ayodhya in the 1993 assembly elections in this state. Yet,
the terribly lean days that follow.
few within the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) harbour
‘It is a matter of survival,' Puthuli tells me
illusions about the damage it caused them when the then
breathlessly. For each gadda (bundle) of fifty leaves, the
chief minister, Sunderlal Patwa, sought to undermine the
leaf-collector gets 30 paise. If Puthuli manages a hundred
cooperativised collection of tendu.
gaddas in a day, she will have earned Rs.30. in the early
His moves hit the very poor and benefited a handful
days of the season, she averages between eighty and
of private traders to the extent of crores of rupees. Some
hundred gaddas daily. Only very rarely can she put
of the beneficiaries were top functionaries of the B JP at
together more than a hundred gaddas.
the state level. The party received the bill for these actions
Her activity does not cease for a moment even while
through the ballot boxes,’ says one anti-Patwa BJP
speaking to me. With the ease bom of doing something a
member bitterly. ‘The undoing of the cooperatives,
million times, each smooth flick sees a hand reach to a
returning monopoly powers to private interests like the
cluster, detach a leaf with minimal sound and effort and
traders, hurt people for whom this is the lifeline.’
transfer it to the other hand or armpit in one flowing
Yet, though the links are very real and powerful, it isn’t
motion. When the bunch under the other arm gets too big
easy to immediately connect these events with the poor
it goes into one of two baskets hung on a stick that
adivasi women plucking tendu leaves in the forests of
someone will balance on his or her shoulder.
Surguja district.
‘I pluck 70 to 80 gaddas a day,' says Pyari, the leaves
When Pyari in Jajgir or Puthuli in Kantaroli village,
piling up rapidly under her arm. Puthuli's is a six-member
both adivasi women, get up at 4.30 on a May morning,
family including four children, every one of whom can
w
they begin alking almost before they’ve overcome sleep.
manage 20 to 30 gaddas of 50 leaves each. Since her
—
Though—as always they bear the brunt of the work, this
husband can pack away about 100 gaddas the six of them
,
time they’re not alone. Tens of thousands of extremely poor

together can average 300 gaddas daily in the early weeks.
families work as whole units to pick the leaves, which go
On such days they could earn up to Rs.90.
immediate. The only ‘perks’ or fringe benefits I notice come

as we trudge home after plucking patta from 5:30 a.m. to
1 1 a.m. A young man throws a small boulder against the
base of a tree and the children run around picking up the
tendu fruit that shower down. Back in the huts, after the
women have done all the other chores, including cooking,
cleaning and fetching water from considerable distances
the process of sorting out the leaves begins.
Taking the. leaves out of the baskets, they neatly
organise them in batches of fifty, and tie up each bundle
separately. This too, takes some hours. Here again, the
family sits down as a unit, but the mother and her
daughters do the bulk of the work. Often, though, a man
‘
does the tying of the string around the bundles.
By 4.30 p.m. they’re marching off to the phar, the
tendu market place. There, the official in charge, the phar
munshi, jots down each one’s account and decides on the
payment they will get. The forest department tries to
facilitate the entire process right through the season.
The offerings brought to the phar are laid out in long,
Picking tendu leaves in the Kantaroli forest For each gadda (bundle) of 50 leaves
. elaborate rows often covering a whole field. The sight of
that Puthuli puts together, she will earn all of 30 paise* Yet, tendu collection is a
major source of income for the poor. By working at backbreaking speed, a family as people walking in from the forest, from a dozen different
a whole canput together up to 300 gaddas a day during the early weeks of the season. directions, is quite riveting. The phar munshi regularly
steals twenty out of every hundred bundles. The peasants
This means they earn more in the first two weeks of
the season than what they might earn in the next two
seem resigned to this low-level racketeering. ‘What choice
do we have? Over here, he’s the boss,’ says Pyari.
months. The flow, however, tapers off a bit as the days go
Earlier, private contractors used to purchase the
by.
leaves directly from people like Pyari, Puthuli and their
Still, there isquestion that May represents the
little
families, paying them a pittance. The present system,
peak earning period a lot of extremely poor people,
for
while far from ideal, exposes them less to the rapacious
specially for the landless or marginal farmers. A family
traders. Under the old system, encroachments on forests
could earn over Rs.2,000 in a month, a fabulous amount
here in Surguja. And this is apart from any other income
by outsiders became so severe that the tendu collection
they derive during this period.
trade was nationalised in 1964.
The Whole areas were then leased out to individuals,

collection work ends arounda.m. But the 1 1
activity doesn't end with the plucking, nor is the payment
which led to private contractors looting the forests. During
upheavals on this front, some Madhya Pradesh government would be unwise to take the hitches, where
governments found that the price of the leaf could be the they arise, lightly.
price of power. As the profits of the traders grew, so did Usually it’s just beedis that go up in smoke. Where
the distress of the poor. this leaf is concerned, sometimes it’s governments.
In 1988-89, the chief minister, Arjun Singh, tried
breaking this stranglehold. The whole process was
cooperativised in the present three- tier system. At the base
are the village-level primary cooperatives in charge of
procurement, drying and ‘bagging’ of the produce.
The second tier consists of a group of such
cooperatives forming a union that looks after
transportation and storage. At the top is the apex body,
the Madhya Pradesh Minor Forest Produce Federation,
which is responsible for sale and marketing of nearly 50
lakh bags of tendu leaves annually.
The apex body arranges financing for procurement by
—
the primary cooperatives this needs nearly Rs. 1 50 crores
—
each year and also arranges the auction of produce to
the beedi manufacturers.
Madhya Pradesh accounts for nearly 50 per cent of
tendu leaves nationally, worth Rs.325 crores in its raw
form. But most of this goes to the southern states.
During its term, the Patwa government struck back
on behalf of the traders, hitting the poor and costing
Madhya Pradesh a fortune in revenue. Auditors have
proclaimed a Rs.55 crore loss to the state, while others
push the figure above Rs.200 crores.
Few doubt the B JP government paid dearly for this at
the hustings towards the end of 1993. Significantly, one
of the first things the new Congress government did was
to undo that damage. The ‘tendu scam' has since proved
a big weapon in Congress hands against the BJP.
As I leave Surguja, minor protests are surfacing over
delays in payments, though in a few districts, the process
seems to have gone off reasonably well. Still, the Congress
When the forests were ‘reserved’, they could not cut wood
The vanishing world of the Birhors or get rope fibres. Their finished goods fetched very low
prices, not even meeting the cost of production. When
deforestation ravaged the few areas they still had access
to, hunting failed. In times of natural calamity or crisis,
they are the worst hit.
JHABHAR, Palamau (Bihar): The widow of Akhu Birhor ’Look at her,* says Sukhra Birhor, pointing to the silent
sits silentlynext to her kumbha, or hut made of leaves and woman. ‘When the drought began last year, we were
twigs. The Birhor colony is just outside Jhabhar village in ruined. Her husband Akhu had died of hunger. Food and
the Balumath block of Palamau. The people of Jhabhar, Red Cards mostly did not reach us.’ The Red Card is an
some of whom have seen the mansions of the district emergency ration card distributed in famine or
headquarters at Daltonganj, call the kumbhas near-famine situations. A top official in Palamau wisely
‘air-conditioned’. We find out why, when the cold winds of went in for the cards in late 1992. The famine code had
Chhotanagpur cut through the huts and chill us to the not been officially invoked, but the crisis was bad enough.
bone. Yet, the Birhors did not get them.
The Birhors are of the same Austro-Asiatic language The one or two cards we got were due to the good
group as the Ho, Santhal or Munda tribes. They are the people of Jhabhar,' says Sukhra Birhor. ‘No one else
people (Ho) of the forest (Bir). A nomadic tribe of the came.’ Being so few in number, illiterate and extremely
Chhotanagpur belt, they move mainly around Palamau, backward, the Birhors can’t make themselves heard in a
Ranchi, Lohardaga, Hazaribagh and Singhbhum. The society with little interest in them.
Birhors are in many ways a unique people. Ignorance about the tribe leads to much confusion.
They are also a vanishing people. The 1971 census Census data on the Birhors is also flawed for this reason.
said there were over 4,000 of them in that year. There are Here, they are Birhors. In Sundargarh district of Orissa,
just around 2,000 of them now, maybe less. That includes locals call them Mankidi. In Sambalpur district,
about 144 in Orissa and 670 in Madhya Pradesh. The main Mankirdia. Both labels spring from their expertise in
group is, of course, in Bihar. In this state there were 3,464 trapping monkeys. Since monkeys often destroy crops and
at the time of the 1971 census. An official study in Bihar fruit, locals employ Birhors to trap them. As the forests
in 1987 said number had declined to 1,590.
their In die, so does that line of work.
Madhya Pradesh, their number fell from 738 in 1971 to In 1971, the nomadic group ended up being counted
670 in 1991. —
in Orissa as three separate tribes Birhor, Mankidi and
Their decimation follows the relentless destruction of Mankirdia. This error was set right in 1 98 1 and they were
the forests on which they depend. A development process counted as one tribe. So the number of Birhors in that
that takes no notice of their needs or unique character has state ‘shot up' by 44 percent though their group was in
not helped. The Birhors were mainly hunter-gatherers. fact declining. The government of Orissa congratulated
They were also engaged in rope -making and wood work. itself on the increase. Thus, data on the Birhors is most
unreliable.
and other crooks have diverted money meant to control
As hunters, the Birhors complete harmony
lived in and bring down the alarming health problems the tribe
suffers from.
with the great jungles around them. Their use of the
forests is never wasteful and always rational. Even their ‘Even the teesra fast (third crop) doesn't reach them,'
settlements, as a rule, normally have only about ten huts laughs a Jhabhar villager. Third crop? I enquire naively. I
or so. They spread their colonies across the forest. This had only known of two. He was clearly hoping I would ask.
allows the different groups fair and equal access to a share "The third crop in this region is drought relief. The funds
of forest resources. Today, in their main home of Bihar, involved in it are huge but the harvest is generally reaped
they are the victims of unprecedented deforestation and by block-level officials and their contractor friends. Only
‘development’. a tiny part reaches the people. The Birhors seldom get even
Not a single child in the Birhor colony outside Jhabhar that small share. They live on jungle roots and berries,
goes to school. Female literacy is almost nil. And Raju seasonal fruit, and can go hungry for days at a time.'
Birhor believes this is the case with the tribe in all its areas. The concept of the International Year of the
‘We would like to send the children to school, but who can Indigenous Peoples (1993) fascinates Rambirich Birhor
afford it?’ he asks. ‘We can’t afford food,' says Rambirich when we tell him about It. 'Is it really meant for us?’ he
Birhor. ‘So why talk of school?’ Malnutrition is visible on asks. Then, after some contemplation, he says, ‘It can't be,
the faces in the settlement, more so among children. or we would not be in this state.’ He picks up his ancient
‘Besides,’ says political activist Narendra Chaubey, ‘they —
snare one of his veiy few earthly possessions and —
have very high infant mortality rates. Fewer of their moves off. It’s time to trap a rabbit and end the hunger of
children survive, compared to other communities in the several days of at least one family of indigenous peoples.
region.’ Just at that moment, all the global declarations,
Alcoholism has further contributed to their downslide. resolutions, and seminars on the subject seem a trifle
Yet, crime hasn’t touched them. ‘They are an amazing overdone. ‘As far as I know,’ chips in Chaubey, ‘no Birhor
people,’ says a member of the Jhabhar panchayat. ‘If they has ever been on a voters' list in these parts. This tribe
hear of a robbery taking place on the road a mile away, lives in the bottom one per cent of Indian society.’
they take it as a personal insult. And they rush there with Trapping rabbits, weaving ropes, selling a few baskets
their sticks. I have never known of Birhors turning to when they can, the Birhors seem to live in a different age.
crime.’ Jhabhar’s residents are exceptional in their They are a non-acquisitive and, for all their living
response to the Birhors. Across Palamau and Hazaribagh, conditions, a dignified people. ‘We didn’t beg anything
the tribe mainly faces neglect and apathy. from anybody,’ says Akhu’s widow, speaking at last. 'But
Government programmes mostly fall flat. Or, a they said when the drought came that everybody would be
machinery corrupt down the line hijacks them. Housing helped. Instead, we had no money, no food, we starved and
schemes have proved a disaster, with buildings planned he died. We cannot even manage from the great forests
by architects who have never even seen the Birhors. Nor where we find less and less of our needs. When the forests
have they grasped their particular character. Petty officials vanish, so will the Birhors.’
Orissa’s bricks of burden
BOLANGIR (Orissa) & VIZIANAGARAM (A.P.): Everything

in this kiln area at Vizianagaram in Andhra Pradesh is
covered with brick dust. Adolescent labourers stagger out
of the pit, carrying around 20 kg of bricks towards the
stocking area, passing an old man simply unable to cope
with the 45 kg of bricks he is lugging. The bodies of all
those working here are caked in a film of brick dust that
reappears within minutes of wiping it off. Many have
developed a rasping cough, apart from less visible but no
less dangerous respiratory problems.
Even the Andhra supervisor at the pithead does not
speak in Telugu. Almost all the labourers are migrants
from the Kalahandi-Nuapada and Bolangir areas of
Orissa. They are trying to escape hunger at home by—
slaving at brick kilns in Andhra Pradesh. Ran a Nahak is
very pleased, though, to learn that I visited his native
Tarbod village in Nuapada just days earlier. ‘Were all in
the village well when you went there?’ he asks. Nahak
speaks a variant of Hindi. Many in the Kalahandi area feel
they are part of Chhattisgarh rather them of Orissa.
Meanwhile, the old man moves towards the stocking When Amru Majhi and his family heave nearly two tonnes of bricks in the course of
area. Each brick he carries weighs about two and a half —
a day between the pit and the stocking yard in this fashion they will earn nine
rupees. They earn more by actually making the bricks too. But at end
kilos and he carries twenty of them. In the course of the of the day.
each member of the families working here will be left with no more than Bs. 12
day, he could make forty-five trips between pit and yard individually.
— a distance of 25 to 50 metres depending on which end do the required number of trips. When the old man with
of the stocking area he is headed for. And he'd be lugging or without the aid of his family members has lifted nearly
along 45 kg on every trip. Each carrier does this with a two tonnes of bricks in this manner, they earn around nine
half-running goose-step of a gait. They maintain this sort rupees.
of rhythm to avoid dropping the bricks and to be able to 'But that’s not all he earns,’ butts in the supervisor.
blocks of Bolangir (all of them along the Nuapada

‘They get more for making the bricks.’ Which means that border).
’One out of eveiy five migrants from here,’
when Nahak’s five-member family has pushed its limits to says Dr.
Pattnaik, with whom I have been to several of
make fully 1,000 bricks in a day, they get Rs.40. ‘See?’ the villages
from where the migrants originate, ‘goes to the brick
asks the supervisor. ‘They can get Rs.50 in a day.’ If any kilns
in Andhra. Sometimes they travel up to 400
bricks get damaged in the yard, or prove worthless, some km to do so.’
Just look at what official development strategy
kiln owners deduct their value from that Rs.40. And it isn't has
done to employment in the Kalahandi region,’ says Jagdish
on all days that they make the combined payment for both
Pradhan of the Paschim Orissa Krishijeevi Sangh. The
making the bricks and for carting them to the stockyard.
average labourer had 268 days of work here in
Bricks from this area are generally of poor quality, say 1954. (For
some reason 272 days was considered ‘full employment*.)
builders in the more developed city of Vishakapatnam
nearby.
Now he or she can get only 128 days of work in a year —
Ultimately, each member of the families working here
a fall of over 50 per cent —
leading to major migrations.
The destruction of traditional irrigation systems caused
earns Rs.8 to Rs.12 daily. The variations depend on the
immense damage. On top of this, people here get dismal
number of working hands in a family unit and the kind of
prices for their products and absurd
deductions they face. The kiln owners, say those familiar “development”
projects without popular roots
with the building industry in nearby Vizag, earn lakhs of
Andhra provides only a few weeks of employment.
rupees from just the few acres their pits occupy.
Many of the same migrants then pull rickshaws in Raipur
Alien to the area, strangers to the language, many are
in Madhya Pradesh for some days. ‘On a
dependent on the contractor for food purchases. The good day in
Raipur,’ says Ghasiram nostalgically, ‘I can
contractor might direct them to a shop in the nearby town be left with
Rs. 1 5 in my hand at the end of work
with which he generally has a connection. So. in some of
Despite the crude and visible exploitation, none
the ‘homes’ here— dismal-looking hovels under five feet in of
these labourers can seek redress. They do not
height that you have to get down on your knees to enter qualify for
it under the Inter-State Migrant
— are consumed the worst qualities of rice. Mixed with Workmen's (Regulation
Employment & Conditions of Service) Act, 1979.
of
liberal quantities of dust and even scrap particles, this rice
‘One who goes of his own volition and not through
costs Rs.7 a kilogram or more. ‘The supervisor was a
labour contractor does not presently qualify as a
helpful,’ says Rana Nahak innocently. ‘He showed me a migrant,’
says the Orissa chief labour commissioner,
shop to buy from.’ The economics of the operation are B.B. Mishra.
He has been strongly urging changes in the Act. As Mishra
baffling. ‘But here,’ says Ghasiram, ‘at least there is work.
points out, ‘The Act places no responsibility on
What work is there, back in Bolangir or Nuapada?’ the labour
employment in the machinery of the host state.’
‘The complete destruction of wage
Simply put. the Oriya migrants have to suffer because
Kalahandi-Bolangir area has taken its toll. Along with
they came to Andhra Pradesh on their own.
steady alienation of land, labour and produce, it is the That they are
very much in the grip of contractors here
driving factor for such migration,’ says Dr. S.K. Pattnaik does not count.
And secondly, the Andhra labour department cannot be
of the NGO Vikalpa. The NGO surveyed fifty villages in four
162 Everybody tones a Good Drought
held legally responsible for their plight.

Who are those who leave their homes to travel 400 km Surguja’s silent ban on bullock-carts
survey, over 42
for a pittance? According to the Vikalpa
Another 31
per cent are landless agricultural labourers.
per cent
per cent own an acre or less while a further 16
cent of the
hold under two acres. ‘In short, close to 90 per
farmers, says Dr. BATRA, Surguja (M.P.): Why is Surguja in Madhya
migrants are landless or marginal
Pradesh the only district in the Hindi belt where you can’t
Pattnaik.
to the find a single operational bullock-cart? The roads of
The old man, Amru Majhi, who belongs
the pit yet prosperous neighbouring Bilaspur district are thick with
remaining ten per cent, staggers back towards
them. They can also be found across Surguja's borders
again. He says his family once owned over four acres before
with eastern U.P. and Bihar. In Surguja itself, which is
moneylenders got after them. His eyes light up at
the
the
mention of Badkani village in Bolangir, from
where he has bigger than Bilaspur, there isn’t a single functioning
Neither can Rana bullock-cart visible.
come. But he can’t stop to talk too long.
This, in a nation where the humble baylgaadi is the
Nahak. The supervisor is looking our way and
there are
perceived symbol of the countryside. And also a vehicle
trips to be made.
that saves India over Rs.4,000 crores yearly in foreign
exchange. That would be roughly the extra cost of oil
imports if grain moved by bullock-cart were to be lifted by
other, more modem forms of transport. The country has
an estimated fifteen million carts. And nearly 90 per cent
of these animal-drawn vehicles (ADVs) Eire pulled by a pair
of bullocks.
Reviling an opponent
for having a ’bullock- cart
mentality’ is standard fare in urban debate. A prime
minister once attacked his critics in the Lok Sabha in
those terms. Is the cart such a useless relic? India has rail
and domestic air networks that are among the largest in
the world. Also, significant marine and road systems. Yet,
all these forms of transport carry perhaps a third of the
foodgrain that the humble bullock-cart does. As
N. S . Ramaswamy and
C.L. Narasimhan of the Indian
Institute ofManagement, Bangalore, pointed out over a
decade ago, ADVs generate employment for nearly twenty
million Indians, part-time or full-time, directly or
a money wage or in kind.

indirectly, either for took roughly seven hours to cover the sixteen- kilometre
Then why used in huge Surguja,
aren't bullock-carts route.
which at 23,000 sq. km is more than three times the size M.S. Singh Deo, former Raja of Surguja (now
of the average M.P. district {7,000 sq. km). With its bad
or vice-chairman of the state planning board) says he has ‘no
non-existent roads, wouldn’t it need them even more comprehensive explanation for this phenomenon. I think
greatly? More puzzling, you can find a few carts lying it has something to do with the
fact that historically,
—
within the yards of prosperous farmers unused. Some Surguja s great forests had a veiy large number of tigers.
are ancient specimens with wooden axles. Our “roads" were in fact forest trails. And cattle attracted
I reused these questions in nearly
every village I visited the tigers like a magnet.’ Singh Deo believes that even the
in rural interior Surguja across three weeks. The answers few carts that lie unused ‘were probably given to the people
they got point to a unique social contract, the existence of during some bullock-cart scheme or something like that’.
an unwritten, silent ban in Surguja on the use of the But surely, emaciated bsullocks and dangerous forest
bullock-cart. A variety of factors were mentioned, though. trails exist in some other parts of the country as well
which
‘The bullocks here are too weak,' Laltha Prasad told do have bullock- carts? In Batra village, however, Balram
me in Kalipur village. They haven’t the strength to plough, Prasad Singh gave us another explanation. This one had
how will they pull carts with loads on them? How can we most of the elements of the others. But, going beyond
them, it focused on the dismal employment situation in
feed them well when we can’t feed ourselves? The rich use
Surguja and on the social contract thrown up by that.
casual labourers for transportation—they don't have to
True, the- trails are bad and the strain more on the
feed humans. It’s cheaper than looking after oxen which
bullocks,’ said Balram Prasad Singh, ‘but the use of
have to be fed the year around.’ Even in the early ’80s,
bullock- carts means you have a surplus to take to the
surveys estimated that the annual minimum cost of
market. Here the vast majority have very little produce to
maintaining an animal in rural India was around take to market. Since they transport so little and bring so
Rs. 1,169. Nearly 60 per cent of that went towards animal little, they use their shoulders to cany it and
their feet to
feed. Though no current official estimates are available, walk the distance.’
maintenance costs have clearly spiralled since then. ‘Besides,’ he pointed out, ‘the small farmer here is
The bullocks here are clearly a weak, emaciated lot, unable to sustain himself on his land (and many have no
unlike their healthy neighbours in Bilaspur. once had to
*1
land) and produce. He earns a small but vital amount
hire a bullock-cart to fetch a 5 HP diesel pump across doing menial jobs and errands from bigger farmers,
sixteen kilometres,’ says advocate Mohan Kumar Giri of carrying the big man’s goods and produce for him. A
Surajpur. proved enormously difficult. Finally, I paid a
'It bullock-cart would hurt that income. So we don’t use
mere Rs.15 for hiring the cart, but Rs.100 for hiring the bullock-carts in Surguja.'
bullocks. People were afraid their bullocks would die in That rings true. As market day approaches, even the
the tough, unrelenting terrain here.’ So the owners remote roads are dotted with human beings carrying loads
imposed strict conditions on the pace of travel, and Giri that are too small for carts but which seem shattering
for
human shoulders. And carting stuff by shoulder is a major

source of employment in this district. The Surguja
collector. R.K.Goyal, says that tens of thousands of people
here find employment for no more than 125 days in a year.
After that, a struggle for survival.
it’s
This is where those extra earnings from human

transport become crucial. So farmers who can use
bullock-carts refrain from doing so because of the distress
it would cause. A senior official in Bhopal
calls this the
‘subsistence ethic at work’. An unwritten understanding

that the better off should not ruin the little stability the
poor have. It springs not so much from altruism as from
sensing the possible consequences of putting further
pressures on the poor.
Perhaps, just as the visibility of modem forms of
transport tends to obscure the role of the bullock-cart, the
animal-drawn vehicle, in a sense, does the same to others.
It makes less visible the peasants and marginal farmers
who depend on head-load carrying. More than 80 per cent

of intra-village traffic in India’s major regions is carried by
In Surguja, people carry shoulder or head-loads across unusually long
porters as head- loads. Yet, this other, major form of distances.
For the very poor, the bullock-cart is a relatively advanced and costly technology.
transport gets little recognition. Only 40 per cent of all cultivators in India ou>n a pair of working animals.
In Surguja, people carry head -loads (or rather,

shoulder-loads) across longer distances. They often do this Pradesh and its productivity is not far below the state’s
with the goods and produce of others, certainly going average. It’s wealth, though, is concentrated in the hands
beyond the intra-village framework. In this, here and of a few. Hence many, in acute poverty, ‘have nothing to
nationally, lies another little known truth. That for the very take to the market’.
poor, the bullock-cart is a relatively advanced and costly Surguja’s poverty goes back a long way in history. The
technology. Only 40 per cent of all cultivators in India own Sultanate, the Mughals, the Marathas and the British—all
a pair of working animals. Most others borrow the animals levied their lowest taxes or tributes on this state. The
from their neighbours in return for payments in labour, Sultans and Mughals mostly settled for elephants. As late
kind or, sometimes, even cash. A few landless labourers as 1919, the British, who were extracting fortunes from
also possess animals and earn part of their living from neighbouring states, were settling for a pittance here.
hiring out these for ADV work. Each year, they took just Rs.2,500, Rs.500 and Rs.387
Surguja tops in the transplantation of rice in Madhya respectively from the local feudatory states of Surguja,
Korea, and Chang Bhakhar.

In the years of the eightenth century, the
last
The hills of hardship
Marathas overran the feudatory state of Korea, then under
Surguja’s suzerainty. They did not take full possession of
—
the territory finding it too difficult a terrain to control.
Instead, they demanded a mere Rs.2,000 from the Raja of
Korea. Discovering that he could not pay, they lowered this GODDA (Bihar): Dharmi Paharini is four feet three inches
charge to Rs.200 a year for five years and grabbed severed tall and weighs less than the 40 kg of firewood on her head.
head of cattle in warning. Soon, according to the district She has come to the hoot, set up once or twice a week at
gazetteer, even the ruthless Marathas came around to Devdanmod, from her village Serkattiya, seven kilometres
understanding that the Raja could not pay a single rupee. away. But before that she had to walk twenty-four
They settled, therefore, for ‘five small horses, three kilometres to the forest and back to cut and fetch the wood,
bullocks and one female buffalo.’ covering thirty-one kilometres in all. She will get eight or
They then released and even returned some of the nine rupees for it.
other cattle they had looted, finding them largely The route runs through the Rajmahal hills and the
worthless. The hostilities came to an end and the terrain is rough. But Dharmi has to do this at least once
Marathas marched back. a week to survive. She is from the Paharia tribe, one of the
People still find the cattle worthless from the worst off in the country. Spread across the old Santhal
bullock -cart point of view. And, as young Mahajan asked Parganas division, there are about 20,000 Paharias in
me in Kerhaya village: ‘Yahan aadmi au.r bayl mein kya Godda district. Their fragile existence stays unchanged
Jarak hain?’ In Surguja, human beings are beasts of after decades of promises, plans and ‘progress’.
burden. Poverty forces Dharmi and thousands like her—in the
—
grip of mahajans (moneylenders / traders) to fell trees in
order to survive. For many Paharias, wood is a vital source
of income. Many also have to do this for a few mahajans
who are into timber smuggling. This leads,’ says Dr
Suman Daradhiyar of Godda College, ‘to massive
deforestation, upsetting the ecological balance in a large
part of the hilly areas.’ Dr Daradhiyar’s study, Ecology of
the Paharia Community in Santhal Parganas, links this to
'the merciless exploitation of these poor and helpless
people by the mahajans’.
At the haat, I tell Dharmi
I find it hard to believe she
has come all that way with her load. The small crowd
around us scoffs. Many women cover greater distances
than Dharmi, say a dozen voices. There is only one way to

check this out. Starting the next day, we have to do the *
distance in different areas and hills by accompanying the
Paharia women.
Guhy's case is not unique. Most Paharia women have to
It doesn’t seem such a bright idea at 6 a.m. the next
As we slither down tricky slopes made
slog in this fashion.
day, halfway up the Tethrigodda pahad route. To reach
even more dangerous by the monsoon, we learn what it
some of the Paharia villages you have to cross two to three means. Paharia women like Guhy walk a distance
hillocks. We cover eight kilometres, a good part of it uphill.
After much indecisive wandering, we see groups of Paharia
—
equivalent to that between Delhi and Bombay four to five
times a year.
women, sickles in hand, striding in single file towards the The men practise shifting cultivation on the hillsides.
wooded areas. It is hard to keep pace with their swift, This is sustainable, if you allow a cultivated plot ten years
smooth movement. But we huff and puff behind them. to regenerate its previous level of forest growth. That was
Further down the trail we see more groups either moving
how the Paharias once functioned. But debt, pressures on
towards the forest or towards their villages. Each woman
the land and survival needs have seen slash and burn
has a huge bundle of firewood on her head, weighing 30 agriculture returning to the same areas well before ten
to 40 kg.
years. Robbed of that cycle, the forests go bare. Besides,
overcultivation of the same areas brings declining returns.
Some strains of beans cultivated here fetch high prices
in Bombay. Not for the Paharias, though. 'I have to sell my
Behind the seeming vigour and physical strength of the crop to the mahajan who gave me a loan,’ says
Paharia women is the reality that only a few survive the Chandrashekhar Paharia. So he parts with it at a rupee a
age of fifty. In several Paharia villages in Godda, it is hard kilogram. The Paharias are almost never able to consume
to find either males or females past that age. And many the item themselves. It all gets ‘sold’ to the mahajan. Dr
women don’t see forty*five. Daradhiyar’s study estimates that 46 per cent of a
Guhy Paharini walks over forty kilometres the day she Paharia’s earnings go directly to the mahajan in
takes the firewood to the haat. But that’s only a part of the repayment of debt. Up to another 39 per cent go to the
long march in her short life. She has to walk six to eight lender indirectly (through the purchase of necessities,
kilometres a day for water. etc.).
’The water source isn't veiy far away,’ she says
cheerfully (by which she means two kilometres). ‘But I can *
only carry so much at one time. So I have to do the same
distance three or four times on some days.' This is apart The balding hillsides look pathetic as we continue
from her bi-weekly walk to the haat. That water source wheezing behind the women, down one hillock, up
may be 'just' two kilometres away. But it’s a steep and another. In the villages we pass, schools exist only as
tough two kilometres that really taxes the body. empty buildings or merely on paper. It’s almost impossible
1 72 Everybody Loves a Good Drought Beyond the Margin 1 73
to findPaharia women who are literate. points out Mathur, the woman too can reject the male on
It isn’t easy to move twenty metres ahead other grounds after moving into his house.
of the
women, taking photographs. Just when we think that we
can no longer take the scorching heat and pace, they stop *
on the slopes to rest and drink water from a stream. That

gives us a break to soothe our bursting lungs and
The descent between Tethrigodda and Bhoda Khota is
shrinking egos. They have been walking for over three
steep, slippery and strewn with sharp stones. The
hours now. Paharias don’t seem to care. ‘Roads here,’ says Mathur,
Dr Daradhiyar’s studies show that the streams here ‘are a sign of exploitation, not development.’ He has a
are iodine -deficient and of ‘a very poor quality’. This seems
point. Paharias closer to the plains are more in the grip of
to have much to do, he says, with ‘the miserable general
mahajans than those in the villages on the hill tops.
health’ of people here.
Such ‘development schemes’ as have come here have
No water supply systems worth the name exist here. never involved the Paharias themselves in decision-
Years of neglect have ensured that. So the Paharias suffer
making. One experiment saw many Paharia families being
from a range of water-borne diseases. These include
given two cows each. The Paharias do not milk
diarrhoea, dysentery and liver enlargement. Many also
suffer chronic diseases like tuberculosis, goitre and sickle
—
cows surely the milk belongs to the calf?
The Paharias do not consume milk products either,
cell anaemia. Besides, this is malaria territory. Gandhe
but no one knew this. What they do consume is beef and
Paharia, at forty-five the oldest inhabitant of Dorio village,
quite a few of the ‘loans’ were thus consumed. Others tried
says: If a man falls very ill here, there is no hospital
using the cows as draught animals, leading to their death
nearby. We have to carry him on a cot tied to bamboos for
in the difficult terrain. Some of the poorest people in the
perhaps fifteen kilometres in this terrain.’ country then made repayments on loans they had never
The women have finished drinking water and try to sought.
answer our questions. Here, a woman’s ability to fetch Government funds, points out Mathur, have only
water is on test when she moves in with her future in-laws.
‘fattened the battalions of contractors'. Bullied by corrupt
Among Paharias, the marriage ceremony itself can come the Paharias retreat further into the mahajan’s
officials,
much after the woman moves in with her in-laws. grip. Madhusingh, a politically aware Paharia, sums it up
Btro Paharia, an elder of the Upar Sidler village in the
simply. ‘Officers are a transient reality. The mahajan is a
Sandarpahari block, says water is a vital test. ‘Only when
permanent reality.'
a girl is capable of fetching water in our conditions she impact. A
is Political movements have had limited
accepted.’
CPI-led agitation freed Paharia land from mahajan control
Giridhar Mathur of the Santhal Paharia Seva
in the '60s and ’70s. But the state failed to follow up and
Mandal.who has worked among the tribe for fourteen status quo ante was restored. Many NGOs, some of them
years, feels the ‘probation’ aspect is exaggerated. He agrees
well meaning, have worked years in this region with no
that the male's work abilities are not similarly on test. But,
success.
Dr Daradhiyar and his co-investigator. Dr P. K. Verma,

believe that the tribe is dwindling. The government denies Kahars take the count
this but accepts that such a risk exists. To fight this, it
has announced more programmes that are unlikely to
touch the Paharias but seem promising for the contractors
and mahajans. ‘Meanwhile,’ says Madhu singh, ‘our
forests are disappearing. Our land is less, our agony more.’ NUNMATTI, Godda (Bihar): When Shiv Shankar Laiya
passed his matriculation exam in 1967, it was a big event
* for the Kahars of Godda. He was the first matriculate from
the commun ity, believed by many to be worse off than even
When we reach the haat way beyond Paharpur, it is Godda's Paharia tribals.
twenty-four kilometres from where we first saw the With the passage of time, that achievement has
women. Through the day we have hoofed forty kilometres. dimme d. Especially since Laiya remained jobless for the
It isn’t amusing to remember that I have to repeat this next twenty- six years. Meanwhile, the second matriculate,
process during the next eight days. The women sell their Joginder Laiya, died of tuberculosis. Today, not a single
bundles of firewood weighing 30 to 40 kg in front of us for — Kahar child in Nunmatti or at Gorighat village within
five to seven rupees per load. —
Godda town where significant numbers of them
In Godda next morning, still aching in every limb, I reside —goes to school. ‘Two are enrolled in school,’ says
see the ‘Freedom Pillar’ set up in 1947. The first name is Shiv Shankar Laiya, ‘but who can afford to send them? It
that of a Paharia; in fact, most of the martyrs listed on it costs money. At least here they tend the goats and pigs.’
are Paharias. A dwindling group, the Kahars (also spelt as Kadar or
The first to die for freedom, the last to benefit from it. Kadhar) are poorer and more backward them many
scheduled caste and scheduled tribe communities. They
do not figure in either category, though. That excludes
them from the benefits those groups can claim. Few castes
have borne so many forms of oppression as the Kahars,
with so few defences against them.
They are almost entirely landless agricultural
workers. The one exception I meet in Nunmatti owns
1 /20th of an acre. Even the sites on which they build their
homes do not belong to them, but are classified as grazing

land. “You should have seen how the other villagers
protested when we built our houses here,’ says Sibu Laiya,
whose grandfather was the first Kahar to arrive in
Nunmatti.
There are Kahar colonies in fifty or sixty villages in a thirteen-member brass band that sometimes gets to play
Godda, Banka and Bhagalpur districts. In almost no place at public functions.
are there more than 200 of them and they do not exist No such functions, however, light up Gorighat itself
outside the Santhal Parganas division. Other castes shun or the Kahar colony in Nunmatti. Both are always in
them. ‘Even the harijans do not interact with us,’ says darkness. No one here can afford kerosene and electricity
Baldeb Badai of Nunmatti. ‘We are not allowed into the is non-existent. Again, being outside the SC /ST
vicinity of the others’ houses. And they won't even let us categories, residents can’t get any of the housing
catch fish in the river or the regular ponds.’ programmes at least theoretically available to those
So the Kahars get fish the only way they can by — groups. The average Kahar home is really a hovel. Human
draining ditches and catching them with their hands. The beings share it with the pigs and few head of cattle they
Kahars of Nunmatti never get more them twelve rupees rear.Not a single Kahar dwelling has a door. ‘What have
daily as agricultural labourers. Those at Gorighat, working wegot to steal?’ asks Surja Devi. ‘We can’t afford food, so
mainly as porters, may get up to Rs.20 a day. Neither why talk of doors?’
group finds work on more than 180, or a maximum of 200 ‘How can we manage on four to five rupees a day with
days in a year. six family members?’ asks Leela Devi. ‘Even the old people
Not a single Kahar in any of the groups I meet is aware in this community are not getting any pension. (The Bihar
that the minimum wage in Bihar is now Rs.30.50. Bonded government gives Rs.100 monthly as social security
labourers till a few years ago, when a CPI-led struggle pension to the aged.) Two of my sons ran away to a place
helped free them, the Kahars tasted the worst of landlord called Kalyan near Bombay. Have you heard of it?’
terror in the area. The landlords sexually exploited Kahar In Kalyan too the sons are casual labourers, unable
women and forced the men to perform every kind of menial to send any money home. But Leela Devi is happy they got
labour. away. 'Several days, we eat very little and some days we
The purchasing power of this group is negligible. go without food,’ she says. Alcoholism is making inroads
Puran, a young and outspoken resident of Gorighat, says, and the men, says Matangi Laiya, ‘are wasting more and
'We are totally outside the public distribution system. Who more money on liquor’. The oldest Kahar, Jagdev Laiya,
has the money here to buy things, anyway?’ The Kahar estimates that the younger men spend not less than a
diet seems to be free of pulses and sugar consumption is fourth of their daily wages on liquor.
unknown. There are probably less than 15,000 Kahars spread
Their social exclusion hurts in other ways too. Almost across Godda, Banka and Bhagalpur. They scrape out a
no member of the community has been able to develop —
living in brick kilns, earth works, harvesting but always
skills that could at all add to income. Since they are in seasonal occupations. No one has ever bothered to make
landless, this is a major problem. There are no carpenters a systematic count of their actual number. Official data
or masons, though some do assist people in those crafts relating to them seem to be flawed. ‘They don’t count us
as unskilled helpers. Recently, however, a few have started because we don't count,’ says Jagdev Laiya. ‘We don’t have
performing in music bands. Baldev Badai is now leader of enough votes to make a difference. It is very difficult to
organise our people into a movement if they are scraping

around for an existence. Worse, we are uneducated and And his name was Tuesday
illiterate.’
The main Kahar demand, in the present context, is
that they be included in the scheduled caste list. This is a
race against time. As political activist S. P. Tiwari puts it:
‘They are a vanishing group and don’t count in electoral MUDULIPADA, Malkangiri (Orissa): His name, he said
politics. In every one of their settlements, you hear of how smiling, was Tuesday. His wife’s name was Saturday. He
there are far fewer households today than ten years ago. had two daughters, both named Sunday and a young
This is a group that has tasted oppression in every form son—Wednesday. Members of some ancient tribes often
and in all respects.’ name their children after the day on which they were born.
Yet the Kahars are not quite passive. Resentment runs But the Upper Bondas of Malkangiri, especially those in
deep among them and with it the realisation, articulated the interior villages, follow this practice with ritualistic
by Surja Devi, that "we are in fetters because we are rigour.
uneducated*. Education and land are the two demands Hence, the Bondas call a man bom on Monday, Soma,
they make, beyond being listed as SC. And if those and a woman Somvari. They name a woman born on
demands are not met, there may be no Kahars to count Tuesday Mangali, while naming a man bom on the same
some years from now. day as Mangala. The Bondas also name their animals in
the same fashion.
Malkangiri district in the Koraput region is the only
home of the Bondas, They live nowhere else. One group in
the foothills is called the Lower Bonda. They have
increasingly become culturally different from the others.
The second lives at 3,000 feet above sea level in the hostile
hills. This group is called, rather predictably, the
Upper
Bonda. The term now in vogue is Bonda. Some experts
used to call them Bondos. Official documents for long
referred to them as Bonda-Paroja.
All these, in any case, are the names conferred on
them by outside society. Within the tribe they call
themselves Remo, meaning, simply, men. Ethnologists
regard the Bondas or Bondos as members of a group of
Austro-Asiatic tribes that had, at some point in antiquity,
migrated and settled in the Jeypore hills. There were just
4,431 Bondas in 1990. The Malkangiri collector, G.K.
Dhal, says the Bondas appear in a list of the fifteen most

as theft and burglaries seem unknown. We moved
primitive tribes in the world. They are dependent on food unhindered in the Upper Bonda villages. And we found
gathering, hunting and a type of shifting cultivation. that the few times they moved downhill and used a bus
there, they paid the fare like anyone else.
Wet cultivation has also come up alongside shifting
cultivation. The official Bonda Development Agency The children at Andrahal love their unusual school
estimates that, on average, a cultivating household owns run by the Bonda project. Their young teacher, Mangraj,
is a not even a matriculate and his helper, Ahilya, is a
just under one acre of land. Of this, only a third of an acre
is wet land where they might grow rice or wheat. Just over
Class VII dropout. Neither is a Bonda, but both function
half an acre is land on which they raise millets and pulses. untroubled. Some of the stereotypes too are breaking as
A tiny fraction of an acre allows for the homestead and people learn more about the tribe.
kitchen garden. These are individually owned. But clan ‘Contrary to what many think,’ said Ahilya at the
groups collectively own the swiddens in which shifting curious Andrahal school, ‘the children want to learn.’
cultivation goes on. In every case, women do the bulk of Ahilya gives them two meals a day, which is a big incentive
for them to come to school. As we spoke, quite a few
the work.
The Bondas are victims of both backwardness and underage children forced their way into the classroom in
popular prejudice. The collector and officials of the Bonda order to be with their older siblings. They were feeling left
out. Maybe the teachers who ram away needed to come
Development Agency project are trying to fight that, but it
hasn’t been easy. The government posted ten teachers here and see this.
between 1988 and 1992 to the Upper Bonda area. Not one Some officers dealing with such groups are unhappy
took up his post, terrified at the thought of living among with the words ‘primitive tribe’. They say the negative
the fearsome Bondas. Even when the teachers had their connotations that go with it do not help. That official term
pay docked in punishment by the government, several still draws on criteria like declining or stagnant population and
would not take up their posting. very low levels of technology. Also, dismal educational
Police officers meant to be at the Mudulipada colony
standards, extreme socio-economic backwardness and
.
in the Bonda hills stay in Khairiput in the foothills. They other problems of some ancient tribes. No one, however,
is happy with the term. ‘Maybe we ought to say
work from there. Bus drivers, charging the Upper Bonda
with violence and ticketless travel, have terminated bus pre-agrarian groups instead,’ says one expert. ‘Why brand
services between Khairiput and Mudulipada. This means people ‘primitive’? It's very dicey, this word.’ But with a
a fourteen-kilometre walk to reach the first settlement if lack of fresh thinking at the policy levels, such jargon
you do not have a jeep. Besides, homicide levels are remains in use.
outrageously high, the worst within any single group in Stereotypes breed fears. And those fears have hurt
the region. programmes among the Upper Bondas. Their literacy rate
Hardly an inspiring picture, but one much overdone. was as low as 3.6 1 per cent in the '80s. That is way behind
The high level of homicide is almost entirely within the even the disturbing 13.96 per cent for Orissa’s total tribal
community and seldom touches outsiders. Crimes such population. Among women, the rate is next to negligible.
The Upper Bondas have just one matriculate, Mangala

Chalan. A teacher at the Mudulipada High School, he was
away when we reached there. Instead, we met Gusum and
Adibari, the first working women of the community. That
is, both were helpers at the school, and financially
independent of their families in the villages.

Gusum and Adibari motivate Bonda children to come
to school —not every school the one at Andrahal.
is like
‘When the mother does all the work in the field,’ said
Adibari, ‘and the father goes to the solap (sago -palm liquor]
tree, who will look after the little ones? That’s why it is
hard for some of the older children to go to school.’ Infant
mortality rates (IMR) among the Bondas have been
dreadful; at times, higher them 150 per thousand. That's
worse than even Orissa’s tragic 122.
Adibari and Gusum have faced no hostility despite
—
their breaking with tradition in clothing, for instance.
The traditional Bonda woman wears a single piece of cloth
around her waist. This is around a metre in length, and
about 40 cm in width. The women weave it themselves.
The women wear many bead necklaces, aluminium bands,
brass bangles and other ornaments. They also shave their
heads with rather primitive implements. This often results
in cases of tetanus.
’The shaving of the heads,’ said Gusum, ‘is tied to a
superstition about an ancient curse. Apparently, Sita
Devi, offended by the way some of them laughed at her,
condemned all Bonda women to nakedness and to shaving Traditional Bondct women wear a single piece ofcloth, which they weave themselves,
around the waist Some also tend to shave their heads with rather primitive
.
their heads. But the main thing about the clothing that implements This can result in cases of tetanus,
.
worries me is that the children often fall ill in the cold

weather.’ She does not want things forced on people
skills are behind those of other groups in the region. That
these could be vastly improved is beyond question.
against their will. But she would like to see the younger
However, some of the schemes that come up are not. At
ones suffer less from exposure in the Bonda hills where it
one point during our stay, some officials came up with a
gets nasty during the winter months.
Bonda huts are without ventilation and their building plan for tin roofs on all the Bonda huts. ‘This,’ pointed out
a project officer, ‘will fry them in the summer and also keep
them dependent on merchants and officials for repairs.'

The Sita legend and others like it seem to have sprung Footloose, not fancy-free
from early attempts to assimilate this ancient people
within Puranic Hinduism. For the greater part, the Bondas
retain their own religious customs. And their fearsome
image has had some positive spin-offs. For instance, the
— —
forests around them which are not reserved have been PUDUKKOTTAI & TIRUKKATTAPALLI {Tamil Nadu): There
free of timber smugglers. Now their exposure to outside would be no second crop. Mariappan and his
society is growing. And a tribe that has largely remained eight-member family had no food reserves and had jointly
the same for millennia finds its world swiftly changing. earned less than Rs.200 in April. Early in May, he decided
Sometimes for the better. Often, sadly, for the worse. to become an ‘unseasonal’ migrant. Taking his wife and
children with him, Mariappan left Pudukkottai district.
The families of Manickam, fifty- two, and
Muthuswami, thirty-seven, took the same decision. Like
Mariappan, both owned drought -withered plots, about a
third of an acre in size. They had earned almost nothing
in April. The state’s mid-day meal scheme was all that was
keeping the younger children going. The elders were
having meals of koozh (a gruel prepared from ragi) once,
if very lucky, twice daily. With the rise in PDS prices, rice
was out of reach. Both families were from the denotified

Ambalakkarar tribe.
The purchasing power of Pudukkottai’s people has
been abysmal at the best of times. One partial measure of
that is the Thompson rural market index. This is aimed at
‘advertisers, marketers, media planners and
practitioners’. Its task is to assess ‘the market potential'
of 383 rural districts. The index comprises twenty- three
indicators ranging from pumpsets and tubewells to
electrification.
Thanjavur, immediate neighbour to Pudukkottai, tops
the 383 districts. It scores the maximum of 100 on the
index. And Pudukkottai? Its score on the index is just
10.97. And even this clubs the whole population together.
Within that, the purchasing power of the Mariappans and
Manickams would be negligible. With drought capturing looking for the places
their district in May, thousands of agricultural labourers only they would know.
from Pudukkottai left their homes. Over 160 families quit
the single hamlet of Tulakampatti alone. Some left the
Tracking representative groups took time. The skills
elders behind. All took their children with them. of Raj Kumar, an economist who did his M. Phil, thesis on
Where did they go? What work could these migrants poverty from the Bhartidasan University in Trichy, came
find when major agricultural operations in Thanjavur were in most handy. Now, towards the end of May, we had the
over for the season? What are the survival strategies of the very families that had left Tulakampatti.
poor? What happens to the older people left behind? What They had been ‘lucky’, having found a month’s work.
do they eat? Where does their food come from? Who pays Moving across the border, they had first gone to Thanjavur
for the little that they do eat?
city. From there they went to an isolated point outside
One way of knowing was to trace the migrants at then- Tirukkattapalli in west Thanjavur district. Here, for a
new workplace, if they had one. This meant talking to maximum of three months (usually less), they could
families, middlemen, lorry owners, contractors. In several
become brickmakers.
cases, the families had no clear idea. ‘They’ve gone for
‘Those who come in as regular agricultural labourers,’
coolie work,’ was the common reply in village after village
said A. Kalidos, a Kisan Sabha leader in Tirukkattapalli,
where whole groups had left. The complication was that ‘can be unionised. Their rights can be defended. But these
these were not ’regular’ migrants with a structured sort of migrants, though desperately poor, are too difficult
schedule. These were ‘footloose’ migrants going anywhere to keep track of. The very nature of their movements-
they believed it was possible to scrape out an existence. ensures that. We can’t unionise them.’ Thus, though
Some went towards Kerala, some to neighbouring earning something, they Eire more vulnerable to
Pasumpon district. Others went to just about anywhere exploitation.
they could make a few brooms, cut some trees, or labour
Here, they were buying food at higher than market
at desilting tanks. Work that would bring in maybe
prices, paying higher rates for everything because of their
—
Rs.12-15 daily, and last perhaps four or five days after dependence on the contractor. Even tea expenses could
which they would have to move again. Most days in the run to a few rupees every day for a family.
month, many would go jobless. On the days that they Work began around 3.30-4 a.m. because the bricks
worked, it would be just for a meal. had tobe ready for the sun. Yet, since the work was on
Searching for the footloose migrants brought back the piece-rate basis, it went on for long hours. When we found
lines of a Simon and Garfunkel song famous over twenty
them in the kiln, the sun was scorching bricks and
years ago: humans alike. was the contractor’s responsibility to look
It
3fter the kiln. Yet, if the bricks made by a family got

Laying low damaged due to some calamity like rain, he deducted the
seeking out the poorer quarters entire value from their wages. Even otherwise, the moment
where the ragged people go a family completed making 1,000 bricks, the contractor
deducted the value of fifty as 'damaged’ without even

they could be commuting several thousand kilometres.
looking.
The children would never see a school.
Manickam, whose deserted house we had visited in
'It is an extremely fragile survival game,’ said Dr K.
Tulakampatti, was here. He said that if his five-member
Nagraj of the Madras Institute of Development Studies.
family worked very hard, 'we can make 2,000 bricks at a
'This sort of footloose migrant lives in a permanent zone
payment of Rs. 55 per thousand. But after the first week
of very low income and very high insecurity. It just takes
the payment is reduced to Rs.45 per thousand.'
one illness in the family, or one wedding, for the whole
If they produced around 11,000 bricks a week, he
thing to fall apart.’
said, each one of them would get an average of Rs.90 or
Yet, inMuthuswami’s words, things were ‘better than
Rs.100 per week, or Rs.13 to Rs.14 per day. This placed
in Pudukkottai where the fields have all dried up’. An agile
them way below the poverty line or almost halfway below
resourcefulness bom of desperation had kept the family
the minimum wage for the area. Their ration cards showed
alive. One great difference between Thanjavur and
that each of these families had a joint income of around
Pudukkottai was the fine irrigation and water facilities of
Rs.300 to Rs.350 per month.
the former. Here, affluence and agony were close
Manickam said the one luxury the family could afford
neighbours.
in Thanjavur district was rice. They spent about Rs.180
to Rs.200 of their earnings on just this. Dependent on the
contractor, they paid inflated prices and spent about
Rs.250 on items like fuel, tea and other necessities. In
some cases, they made further petty payments to the
contractor. With this, their expenses were already running
dangerously close to their total weekly earnings.
There was, however, another important expense to
come. It applied to those who had left elderly relatives
behind in the village. The entire family returned to their
home in Tulakampatti every Friday, the weekly holiday.
‘On this day we carry food worth Rs. 1 0 to Rs. 1 2 with some
chillies and onions for our elders,’ said Muthuswami. The
elders confirmed this. They looked forward to Fridays. ‘On
that one day,’ said Mariamman in Tulakampatti, 'we don’t
know loneliness and hunger.’
The average family spent Rs.40 or 50 a week on bus
fares. Thiscame to three times the amount they spent on
the food they took for their elders. But they never failed to
keep the date. In the course of their unseasonal jaunts,
of 21 lakh acres declared surplus in Tamil Nadu. Worse,

successive governments distributed a total of just about
The ones that didn’t get away two- thirds of that two per cent of land.
In Pudukkottai, an official study done in 1992 speaks
of families in villages like Sirumarudhur which own land
in six different names. It also records instances of another
kind of crime. Even where surplus land was now legally in
PUDUKKOTTAI (Tamil Nadu): What would a map of the possession of the peasants, the old landlord continued
human movement in the districts of Pudukkottai and to extract rent from them.
Ramnad look like? Draw one and you will have something In retrospect, says the report, ‘many of the assignees
resembling a giant anthill with enormous activity. It
were lackeys of the surplus landholders. And (in some
would, of course, reflect the long-term, permanent
cases) land reform re mains only on paper.’
migration this region is famous for. Also crowding it would
Nor does industry hold out a great hope for the poor
be the routes of short-term, medium-range migration and
over here. Fly-by-night operators have milked the
footloose, neighbourhood migration. There would,
incentives offered by the state for setting up industries in
however, be some fixed points.
backward areas. They set up units that fold up just as the
Some of the poorest don’t even have the option of five-year concessions period runs out.
migrating.
Ziauddin, a local trade union leader, says the
Heavy debt has trapped Chinniah, a harijan in the
pressures on workers are great. ‘Even the mili tant trade
Annavasal block, into staying put. The landlord who
unions are reluctant to press the wage issue here. The
loaned him money has first call on his labour. When he
need for employment is too desperate.'
needs that labour, he will summon him. Chinniah has to
’Give us three acres and just a little water,’ says
be on standby even during the good days of the harvest
Govindrajan of Kovilpatti, 'and we will make this district
season.
work.’The people of Periakottai agree. Mistaking me for a
In Pudukkottai and Ramnad, you can find ration
government officer, they eagerly point to undistributed
cards issued as recently as March 1993 recording a joint
surplus land in their village. A political bigwig who lives
income of Rs.250 to Rs. 300 for families with up to eight
elsewhere, like other absentee landlords, holds these
members. Like Chinniah, most tend to be in eternal debt.
tracts benamt Land reform is just not on the agenda in
.
Their tiny holdings (or, in the case of many, no

Tamil Nadu. Meanwhile, private control of the region’s
holdings at all), deprived of water, would be difficult to live
limited water resources grows by the day.
off at the best of times. Even allowing that there are no big
Under such conditions, drought and footloose
landlords in this district, land reform in Pudukkottai has
migration seem inevitable. Astonishingly, many
mostly been a fraud. (The same is largely true of the rest
thousands of migrant families may never be classified as
of Tamil Nadu.)
such. The National Sample Survey (NSS) data are certainly
As early as 1972, an official report concluded that the
the best we have. Yet, these data draw on a curious
state had taken into its possession less than two per cent
Lenders,
definition of the last usual place of residence' of a migrant.
That is: the village 'where the person has stayed
continuously for at least six months immediately prior to
Losers,
moving to the present village /town where the person is
enumerated’. (NSS 43rd Round.)
Many of Pudukkottai's migrants have not stayed in
any place for six months. Only some of those who have
Crooks
gone to Thanjavur may have done so. So many who are
migrants in the real world, and should be dealt with as
such, stand excluded by such a definition. As one officer
&
here puts it: ‘It makes you wonder. Are we trying to deal
with migrants or just banish them by definition?’
No one really knows how many footloose migrants
Credit
there are. ‘Nor are we likely to know,’ says the officer, 'as
long as we pretend they don’t exist. Or as long as we don’t
treat them as migrants.’
The same survey sums up the 'economic factors'
behind migration no less curiously. For instance: the
search for employment, the search for better employment,
and transfer of service/ business contract.
Dr K. Nagraj of the Madras Institute of Development
Studies finds this a flawed approach. ‘It does not
essentially differentiate,' he says, ’between a corporate
executive moving from Bombay to Delhi for a better deal
and an agricultural worker pushed by poverty from
Pudukkottai to Tirukkattapalli.’
The exchanging an already high standard of
first is
living for an even better one. The other is into a survival
game. But that seems unimportant. Such a definition does
not treat a Russi Modi shuttling between Jamshedpur and
Calcutta differently from a Muthuswami who has left his
home in Gandarvakkottai to cope with the drought. Maybe
someone should tell Muthuswami about this. He might be
pleased.
Usury, debt and the rural Indian

M ONEYLENDERS
Interest exceeding
bindingpeasants in eternal debt?
commercial rates and legal limits many
times over? That sort of thing on a targe scale, was
assured, went out ‘with nineteenth century Bengali literature’. On
I
the eve of setting out for the ex-zamindari area of Ramnad, I
found that confusing. Earlier forays in rural reporting had

suggested otherwise. But it seemed my notions flew in the face
of evidence.
After all, the Integrated Rural Development Programme
(IRDP) had
covered millions of households with
loan-cum-subsidies worth hundreds of crores of rupees. Many
soft credit schemes had covered the rural poor. Loans from
banks and other formal sources had begun to account for the
major share of rural debt. From this, it was possible to infer that
dependence on private moneylenders was swiftly falling. Better
the use of physical violence to recover loans had declined.
still,
In this cheerful scenario, usury would not demand much

of
my time in the poor districts. After all, government policy did
target the poorest. And private interest-free loans argued
that
things could not be all that bad. That was before Ramnad gave
me an idea of how a landlord’s ‘interest-free’ loan or ‘advance’

could bind a family in serfdom for generations. And before eight
districts taught me how ‘institutional credit’ worked; how
moneylenders could set the agenda within poor villages; how
levers other than physical violence were no less capable
of
ensuring repayment.
Maybe the authors of nineteenth century fiction were more
effective in expressing the reality of their times than some late
twentieth century social scientists have been in capturing the
reality of ours.
The last published All- India Debt and Investment Survey

came in 1981-82. showed that the average debt per agricultural
It
household had shot up by about 139 per cent in the decade

covered by the survey. Further, indebtedness had gone up in
every state but Assam. In many states, more than
75 per cent of
and tribals framework, such help is likely to be marginal. Seepage, however,

agricultural labour households were in debt. Dalits
is likely to be great. That can only hurt those who really need
were the worst off.
state credit.
One claim is that the arrival of the IRDP in 1 978 changed
In the early years after bank nationalisation, rural credit
much of this. After that, the share of bank and institutional lending
the through banks did help lakhs of families. It did so even thereafter
gets bigger, and formal credit covers many poor families for
for some time. But waning political commitment at the top meant
first time. But this is misleading in some ways.
There are many strata within the poor, and different levels
declining impact below. By the '90s, just a hundred towns of a —
of poverty. The lower down the ladder you are, the less
likely it
total of 3,768 —
accounted for 65 per cent of all bank credit in
your family. The Reserve Bank of India. Within . those, Bombay, Calcutta, Delhi, Madras,
is that such credit will cover
sources Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Kanpur grabbed the
India pointed this out as late as 1987. True, institutional
account lion’s share. Rural India was way behind.
account for 60 per cent of cash debt in India. But they
Besides, even rural banking at best ran into the reality of
as six per cent of the debt of households owning
its
for as little
village power structures. That often meant that while some did
assets worth less than Rs.1 ,000.
benefit, the poorest got the least.
In some places, like in parts of Tamil Nadu,
agricultural
access to such credit. In most panchayats were and are a farce. As a
states, the
workers may have gained slightly greater
That makes result, many of the ‘gram sabhas’ involved in identifying
But in others, like parts of Bihar, they stand excluded .
beneficiaries did much damage. In parts of Bihar, families of the

them turn to informal credit sources like the moneylender.
sarpanchas were often means the
‘multiple beneficiaries’. This
Besides, despite the relief the IRDP has brought some poor
same family was able to get loans from more than one scheme.
families, it has also seen enormous misdirection and leakage.
People inknow they have to spend money to just enter
Bihar
The findings of the Project Evaluation Organisation of the
the race for an RDP loan. It was in Palamau that first heard the
Planning Commission show us that.
I I
ran a IRDP given a new and creative name: tsko Rupiya Dena Padega
In one year, the Comptroller & Auditor General (CAG)
(we have to pay for this). Besides, the collapse of the old rural
‘test’ IRDP. The auditors found, even in the limited
audit of the
credit format after 1 989-90 really hit the poor.
sample they examined, ‘diversion of funds for other purposes’ in
Take the case of a small tribal farmer getting 'a loan of
excess of Rs.1 6 crores. Quite a bit of this had little to do with rural
Rs.8,000’ under the scheme. Before 1989-90, he would have
‘beneficiaries’. It had much to do with corporate hucksters,
paid interest of 6.5 per cent to 8 per cent. Today, he would pay
though. Close to a fifth of the sum used for wrong ends went to
12.5 per cent interest. But surely that is much less than the 18
bodies linked with urban-based corporates.
some of the items that had cost the per cent anyone would pay in Bombay or Delhi? Not really. It
The auditors also listed
could actually work out to more.
country Rs.1 6 crores. These included ‘air-conditioners, colour
and In countless instances, petty government officials and the
televisions and three-wheeler scooters’. Also, ‘jeeps
whisky, rum, beer, soda,
local bank Rs.3,000 as their cut. However, the
officer slice off
Matadors printing of diaries
. . .
. . .
‘beneficiary’ thumbprints a document saying he received

lunch, tea, biscuits, etc.’
Rs.8,000 and pays interest on that amount though he got only
This is not to say that IRDP loans have never helped poor
political and social Rs.5,000. In effect, he is paying an interest of 20 per cent, way
people. Just that, within the existing
Lenders, Losers. Crooks & Credit 199
above commercial bank rates. Beyond this, he returns Rs 3,000 ;
In village after village,peasants spoke of their experiences

that he never borrowed.
in obtaining official loans: of the many visits they had to make to
Further, people have been given cows or sheep as part of
towns across long distances; of bribes they had to pay to petty
these schemes. No one checks to see if they can cope with the
officials; of the unending certification process and of working
costs of feeding those animals. Very often, poor beneficiaries I
days lost; of big expenses incurred in this run-around.

met had lost the animals to disease or simply could not afford to
Household consumption is the main factor leading people
feed them, leading to their death. They had even paid insurance
to seek loans. Then come marriages and other ceremonial
premiums on these livestock.
occasions. As do house repairs, productive purposes and the
An incisive study on ‘Wage Labour and Unfreedom in
rest. State credit is not available for consumption loans. But what
Agriculture' by Dr. V.K. Ramachandran touches on this aspect.
could be more pressing for those unable to ensure the next meal?
In a Tamil Nadu village he surveyed in 1 986, he found that ‘not
In the village, the moneylender is a neighbour of sorts. A
a single household . that had been a beneficiary of IRDP
. .
peasant seeking Rs.3,000 does not have to run around for

schemes for the purchase of cattle or sheep still had an animal’.
weeks. He will get precisely that sum (sometimes minus the first
Moreover, insurance claims were not settled though the
instalment of interest). No one asks him to explain why he is
claimants had paid the premiums. As he put this was a 'cruel
it,
borrowing the money. The interest may eventually kill him, but in
epitaph to the IRDP for many poor households’.
the short run, he gets the loan.
In Godda in Bihar, officials made Paharia tribals
And that brings up this point: the issue does not end with
‘beneficiaries’ of schemes they had not asked for. They gave
heaping denunciation on usurers. Vicious as it often is, usury is
many families two cows each. The purchase of the animals was
linked to the collapse of formal rural credit. It fills a gap. In doing
usually riddled with corruption. bought pathetic
Officials
so, it devastates the lives of many. That is crucial. And the stories
specimens cheap and handed them over to poor households. In
in this section do try and capture how it does that. But don’t lose
Godda, ignorance about that tribe made matters worse.
sight of why and how it arises. And who it invariably hurts.
The Paharias do not consume milk products, but no one
With formal rural credit crumbling after 1 989-90, even loans
knew this. What they do consume is beef and quite a few of the
for productive purposes are harder to come by. Hence, the
'loans' were thus consumed. Others tried using the cows as
peasant goes to the moneylender. The desire to break out of
draught animals, leading to their death in the hard terrain. Some
such debt is really strong in rural households, but the chances
of the poorest people in the country then made repayments on
of doing so are very bleak for many.
loans they had never sought.
The range of loans and theirterms is bewildering. There are,
Bashing ‘profligate populism’ and the unpaid debts of small
of course, cash loans everywhere. Then there are also the
farmers has kept many editorial writers busy a long time. True,
‘interest-free’ loans of Ramnad, the ‘grain loans’ of Bhoden, the
millions of small farmers together owe Rs.21,000 crores to
'cloth loans’ of Khariar, besides other, less important forms. In
institutions. Yet, a fraction of their number in the form of big and
return, usurers extract land, labour, produce, assets, or
medium businessmen owe the country’s banks nearly three
combinations of these. In parts of western Orissa, bondage and
times as much. But the dues of big business do not excite
prostitution have arisen from the inability of peasants to repay
editorial writers. They know where their salaries come from.
loans to creditors.
Centuries later, the exempt. As the inaction on

elite are still
The word ‘moneylender’ is no less complex. Full-timers are
their mountainous debt shows, they don’t even have to pay
rare. Most often they are landlords and merchants, or both, plying
instalments. We could probably do with a couple of nineteenth
this trade as one among other activities. These are the big ones.
century novelists to write about it.
Then there are shopkeepers and petty government officials. And
there are also lenders within the poor, though theirs are minor
transactions. In Kalahandi, for instance, a group of dalits is into
moneylending. But this is a layered operation where the small,
local lender plays ‘collection agent’ for the town-based usurer.
However, there are commercial lending deals between poor
neighbours as well.
Numbers and categories are vital in explaining
indebtedness, but reducing the problem to numbers would be
self-limiting. Cash figures tell only part of the story. Moneylending
is what moneylending does. Beyond a point, the peasant’s ability
to cope is so thoroughly crushed that it matters very little whether

the annual interest is120 or 380 per cent.
In Bombay’s red light area of Kamathipura are women
bonded into prostitution. Years ago, their grandparents took
loans ranging from Rs.12 to Rs.50. Throughout western Orissa
are villages where the breadwinners migrate huge distances not
only to earn a few rupees, but also to pay off debts incurred in
feeding the family. Across the country are people who have lost
their land — —
and with it their livelihood and status for the same
reasons.
Moneylending creates servility and dependence. The
sanctity of repayment, no matter how deceitfully the debt was
contrived and how cruel the costs, has been drilled into Indian
consciousness since the time of the Manu Smriti. Manu the Law
Giver listed eighteen main categories of law for the king to decide
on. ‘Of those,’ wrote Manu, ‘the first is non-payment of debts.'
Manu’s view: ‘By whatever means a creditor may be able to
obtain possession of his property, even by those means may he
force the debtor and make him pay.’ The elite, of course, were
exempt. While the lower castes would pay a debt or discharge a
fine in labour, ‘a Brahmana shall pay it in instalments’.
The tyranny of the tharagar does not want the lot will Ramaswamy get a chance to sell
it elsewhere.
The tharagar has already consulted the wholesalers
(who belong to the same fraternity). And he now sets the
price along with his fellow tharagars. They do this by
RAMNAD (Tamil Nadu): The tharagar (commission agent) means of a secret language of the hand, fingers clasped
dips his hands into one of two sacks laid before him by a and ‘talking’ under a towel. The actual producer stands
small farmer and extracts a kilogram of chillies. This he watching in unhappy awe. The thousands of kilos of
—
carelessly tosses to one side as sami vathal (God’s share). chillies brought by the farmers can lie for days in the
Ramaswamy, the chilli farmer eking out a living on tharagar’ s yard while negotiations are on. During this
three-quarters of an acre, watches as though hypnotised. period, they get dried out under the electric lights and fans
For Ramaswamy can sell his chillies to no one but this here. Draining the water out of them in this way finally
tharagar. Why? By advancing him Rs. 2, 000 just before the makes the chillies weigh much less, to the detriment of
start of the season, the agent bought up Ramaswamy’s the farmers.
entire crop even before it was sown. In this instance, the tharagar sets a price of Rs.10 per
This one important form that moneylending has
is kg for Ramaswamy’s offering. Then comes the sami vathal,
taken in the ex-zamindari area of Ramanathapuram (or depriving the poor farmer of another Rs.10 worth of
Ramnad). Yet, the tharagar of Ramnad, one of India’s chillies. Next, the tharagar cuts payment by a further
poorest districts, is more than a moneylender. He is often Rs.20, saying each of the two gunny bags holding the
a landholder, a wholesaler linked to the transport chillies weighs a kilogram. (Actually each weighs less than
business and even, in some cases, an exporter. 200 gm.)
Ramaswamy’s tharagar is all of these. And his is a tightly Then Ramaswamy finds that both the bags he had so
knit fraternity. As the president of the Ramnad Chilli carefully weighed in at 20 kg each in Keelathooval village
Merchants' Association told me, ‘Only those who are our now weigh just 18 kg apiece on the scales. Another Rs.40
members can operate here.’ to the tharagar. Ramaswamy knows he is being cheated
Just seventy members of the association control the but is not clear how. Nor does the tharagar explain why
entire chilli crop brought to the Ramanathapuram town he charges his commission on 40 kg but pays only for
market, and with it the lives of thousands of very poor thirty- two.
farmers in one of the country’s great chilli-producing By the end of the season, Ramaswamy will have made
districts. Chilli is the biggest crop after paddy in Ramnad. five trips to the tharagar’ s lair (with the agent claiming
The moment Ramaswamy entered his tharagar' s 'God’s share’ on each occasion), depositing ten sacks in
domain, the agent charged him a commission of Rs.20 (or all. For his labours, he will earn, at the price set for him,
Rs.5 for every Rs. 100 of the total value) on his two humble a But the tharagar, if he is into exports,
total of Rs. 1,600.
sacks. Each contains 2G kg of chillies. Only if the tharagar could earn up to Rs.20, 000 or more on the same
transaction. He has also got around 40 kg of chillies
currently depressed market.

Multiply Ramaswamy’ s agent by seventy and the
farmer by several thousand and you have Ramnad. You
also have what a senior official nere calls, ‘a uniquely
exploitative relationship’. And a market worth millions in
the grip ‘of a handful whose entire business is based on
trapping the peasant in debt’.
Besides, if the tharagar owns land close to that of these
farmers, you might find him selling them water. The hatred
the poor farmers of Ramnad reserve for the tharagar has
to be understood against this backdrop.
Take Ramaswamy, again. He spent Rs.3,000 growing
the chillies he sold to the tharagar for Rs. 1,600. Around
Rs.300 of his expenses were incurred on hiring the
tharagar’s electric pumpset for a few hours to pump up
water. That places him further in the debt of the latter. He
also has a debt hangover from similar deals the previous
year. This means Ramaswamy’s crop for the next two or
three seasons, the seeds of which he has not sown, is
already pledged to the tharagar.
There are thousands in the same situation as
Ramaswamy, mostly small or marginal farmers owning an
acre or less. In such cases, the agent’s control over the
farmer is quite complete. The tharagars, though, are quick
to point out that there was ’no interest charged’ on the
original ‘advance’. As for the current depression in the
While the actual producer just stands by looking on, two members of the tharagar
market, ‘Just watch,' says Vidyasagar, a researcher at the
(commission agent) fraternity sef theprice for the chillies With one ofthem standing
.
on top of a pile of chillies, they discuss a price by means of a secret language of the Madras Institute of Development Studies. This so-called
hand, fingers clasped and ‘talking’ under a towel.
crash has come simply because they’re now buying up
completely free fromRamaswamy. And he is dealing with stock from the peasants. Once they're through, the prices
hundreds of Ramaswamys. will go up again in two or three months.’
Even if he were selling only to markets in Madras, he The chilli farmers of Ramnad see the current
would get Rs.25 per kg where he gave the
at the least, depression in prices as rigging by the tharagars. Past
farmer Rs. 10 per kg. If he has a good network, he could experience seems to bear out this scepticism. At one point
be selling within Kerala at up to Rs 40 per kg even in the in April, the then collector of the district intervened and
206 Everybody Loves a Good Drought Lenders, Losers, Crooks & Credit 207
pushed the merchants season, having sold his crop to the tharagar at a fraction
a price of over Rs.200
into offering
abag{of20kg). ‘They did so,’ says Bose, a young scheduled of its real value. So he pawned his family’s only gold
caste farmer from Etivayal village, ‘in that one market for —
ornaments worth approximately Rs.4,000 with the —
one week. Then it fell to Rs.80 per bag.' commission agent. Against this, the tharagar gave him a
R. Sridharan, the suave and sophisticated president
loan of Rs. 1,200. The interest rate on this was Rs. 10 per
of the Ramnad ChilliMerchants Association, disagrees. month on every Rs.100 of that sum. That is, 120 per cent
interest annually. Natarajan knows he can never repay the
‘Prices are falling due
to overproduction. It is happening
all over the country,’ he says. But why, in that case, do
loan, but could be paying the interest all his life.
the tharagars persist in giving advances to peasants to “They know that this is precisely what it will come to,’
grow even more chillies when the market has been so poor? says V. Kasinathadurai, a local activist. ‘That is why the
‘The advances,’ says Sridharan airily, ‘are a continuous tharagars can afford to be most generous with their
"interest-free” advances.’
process.’
Of exports, he says: ‘In a good season, we can get up Can this incredible system be broken or even tamed?
‘Yes,’ says R. Gnanavasalam, district secretary of the
to $4.40 per kg.’ That’s about Rs. 1 50 per kg and is a great
deal more than what Ramaswamy, for one, collected on Tamil Nadu Kisan Sabha. ‘The state should create a proper
his entire sack of 20 kg. Sridharan is also a wholesaler market as in Guntur and intervene to assure the producer
and exporter. He is most articulate as I interview him in a minimum price of Rs.25 per kg. Besides, the government
his electronics shop, one of the extremely few that stocks should have a weighing system that checks and certifies
all bags as they enter town. Further, we need a chilli oil
items like washing machines and refrigerators in this
town. factory here to exploit possibilities that are now left to
What about the government’s regulated market centres outside the district. And, of course, credit facilities
for farmers.’
scheme here? The merchants scoff at it and the farmers
know little about it. Sridharan says that to be effective, it Gnanavasalam is clear that not much progress can be
ought ‘to give storage facilities to the farmers and credit made unless the cycle of debt is broken. He is actively
facilities to us’. He does not say why the government organising chilli farmers to fight for their rights and hopes
to get some of their demands conceded. Meanwhile,
should not give credit facilities directly to the farmer. But
another tharagar does: ‘What are we there for?’ he asks. Ramaswamy and Natarajan will have to take their sacks
to the tharagar
The ‘credit facilities’ offered by the tharagars, says a .
senior official here, were known in the old days ‘as naked
usury’. The farmers see it that way in the present day as
well.
Natarajan. a scheduled caste farmer from Etivayal,
was unable to repay the ‘interest-free advance’ that he had
taken from his tharagar. So he had to pledge his next crop
as well to the latter. Meanwhile, he needed to survive the
moneylender.
Slaves with ‘salaries’ and ‘perks’ From the next morning, their son reported for work to
the landowner- moneylender at 8 a.m. and worked till
around 9 p.m. He had to tend sheep and cattle, and do
every conceivable job of the owner in the fields besides
RAMNAD (Tamil Nadu): Meesal village lies about forty
domestic work in his house. At 10 p.m., he returned home
kilometres from nowhere. Which is probably one reason with the leftovers of the last meal in the owner’s house.
why its landowners are able to practise a form of bonded This he has been doing for the past few months, on an
labour that is both clever and vicious, but attracts little annual ‘salary’ of Rs. 1 ,000.
attention. At the receiving end are the Chakkiliayans, the
At the end of twelve months, he will go into bondage
lowest strata among the harijans, at the bottom of
again for the next year, since the interest on the loan of
Ramnad's casteist heap. —
Rs 2,000 is too high to repay. It is 'pathu rupa vatti’ Rs. 10
Even the Pallans and the Parayans, the other harijan per month on every Rs. 100 hundred of that sum. Or 120
groups here, practise untouchability towards them. The per cent a year. Already, his father himself has become
Chakkiliayans cannot even get the barbers among the bonded to the same owner as a result of his inability to
harijan groups to cut their hair. They themselves are keep up the interest payments.
traditional leather workers and cobblers and also
Puchchi, in his sixties, is one of the oldest of the
drum-beaters. Chakkiliayans. That is his name as recorded on his ration
card and it literally means insect. Another name you can
It doesn’t end there for the Chakkiliayans of this
find is Adimayee, meaning slave. Their overlords have
village in Mudukulluthur taluka. Almost every single one
of the eighty-odd families here has a couple of members
handed down such names to people of these strata across
trapped in bondage. generations. The names have remained, even been
internalised.
It works this way: the landowners pay the bonded
labourer a ‘salary’ and allow him or her a few fringe Their ration cards show joint family incomes of Rs.200
to Rs.250 a month for households with up to eight
benefits as well. This means a payment of Rs. 1 ,000 for a
whole year and permission to take the leftovers of the last members.
meal of the day home. The owners stoutly insist that it is Even this, insists Puchchi, was an arbitrary figure
arrived at by an officer doing the rounds. ‘Most of the year,
no more than an employer-employee relationship.
The catch is that the ‘employee’ cannot work anywhere we earn no cash at all, but he just wrote Rs.250 a month.’
else and is a virtual slave of the landowner. Jayamani and
There is a pathetic irony in the official queries on the card
alongside the income figures. Sample: 'Are double (gas)
Armugham needed cash for their daughter Jayarani’s
cylinders available?’ Two cylinders and a gas stove cost
wedding. ‘The only thing we had to mortgage,’ says
Jayamani, ‘was our labour power.' So they pledged their more than what the entire family would earn in the best
son's labour against the advance taken from the
months of the year.
Some are slightly luckier than the others. Arumugham
gets fed three times a day at the owner's house, apart from Just four of them have seen the inside of a high school.
his salary. Others aren’t. Bonded female children have to They too, are no longer functionally literate.
do the same work and more with no ‘salary’ at all, just the Tracking the food habits of the Chakkiliayans can be
food. demoralising. Many families are quite dependent on
Chitravalli. twelve, daughter of Shanmugham, is giveaways and leftovers. Sometimes, the leftovers from
bonded without pay. But she can eat at the owner’s house their masters’ houses can form the main meal. And the
and take home the leftovers of the last meal. Velu, fifteen, great gap between income and expenses ensures
son of Muthu, is in bondage but earns a ‘salary’ of Rs. 1 ,400 indebtedness even for people with such a low food intake.
a year. That immediately goes in .paying back interest Caste oppression here has been so bad that even in
instalments on the original loan. Velu has been working the recent past the mere sight of a clean-shaven, decently
this way, over twelve hours a day, for five years now. dressed Chakkiliayan was cause enough to spark a riot.
During that period, his master is glad to inform us, his The upper castes forced harijans to dress according to
‘salary’ has gone up from Rs. 1 ,000 a year to its present —
their status meaning poorly. That goes back in history.
grand proportions. In the 1850s, the British governor of Madras tried to
When the master advances a loan of Rs.500, as he did change this ‘dress code’. Heruled that harijan women
for Srinivasan, twenty-two, six months ago, he converts to Christianity could cover their breasts and
immediately deducts Rs.50 as the first instalment of shoulders. Till then, the rules set by the higher castes did
interest. Srinivasan has so far repaid Rs.300 in only — not permit them to do so. In the 1950s and '60s, this led
interest. He has little chance of repaying the loan. He has to a number of the Chakkiliayans converting to
run up more debts with others just to be able to repay a Christianity. But that has not helped them much.
couple of instalments on this one. This is one community with whom the government has
We fail to locate a family that does not have some actually tried to intervene. Recognising they were amongst
member in bondage. Puchchi’s two daughters, the poorest of the poor, the government in 1981 acquired
Maniapushpam, twenty, and Samiadrall, nineteen, are a piece of land in the village to build them houses. The
both bonded without pay. The Chakkiliayans are also landowners of Meesal immediately opposed this. The issue
weak and backward in other respects. h ung fire till 1986 when they were finally persuaded to
The harijans of Ramnad are, in any case, worse off hand over the site.
than their counterparts elsewhere on some counts. This means that over thirty families now have some
Nationally, the literacy rate of the scheduled castes was, house or house site. But an equal number are without one.
in the 1981 census, 25.3 per cent. It is nearly 7 per cent One the whole, their status has not changed, with the
lower in Ramnad. Literacy among harijan women is close government taking little interest in challenging caste
to 1 1 per cent nationally, but under 7 per cent in Ramnad. oppression.
And within the harijan groups here, the Chakkiliayans are Harijans make up close to 18 per cent of Ramnad
right at the bottom. Of 210 illiterates enumerated in district’s population and over 90 per cent of them are in
Meesal village, more than 160 are from this community. rural areas like Meesal. Census data show almost a third
2 12 Everybody Loves a Good Drought Lenders, Losers, Crooks & Credit 213
of them be landless agricultural workers. The rest are

to The commission conducted a survey covering twenty
mainly marginal farmers and sharecroppers A young IAS .
occupations in all twenty-three districts of Tamil Nadu. And, at
probationer studied over eighty villages in Ramnad around the end of it, was quite blunt in describing the state’s attitude. It
two years ago. In an important but depressing report, he said: ‘Details provided by the state government and the district
recorded in utter dismay: ‘I found that more than 50 per administrations do not tally in most districts and even appear
cent of harijan households have assets worth less than fabricated.’
Rs.100.’ That is, barring a few agricultural implements
and tools.
For the Chakkiliayans of Meesal, job opportunities are
zero and their landholdings are nil. Even their traditional
role of beating the drums at funerals and other functions
has suffered. A group led by Puchchi and Shanmugham
shows us how their drums have rotted for want of servicing
and repairs that they cannot afford. At least if these were
all right, we could earn up to Rs.750 for playing at an
important function,' says Shanmugham. ‘But now even
that source is gone.’
In a note on slavery in 1871, the Madras census
commissioner mentioned the Chakkiliayans (clubbing the
group along with the Pariahs). He wrote that ‘without
exception, they are slaves of the superior castes’. Over 120
years later that still seems to be the fate of the
Chakkiliayans. If slaves can have ‘salaries’ and ‘perks’.
Postscript
Bondage exists here and in some other states in many, often

disguised forms. Despite the low priority it gets, the issue won’t
go away. The Tamil Nadu government says that there are only
‘stray cases’ of bonded labour in the state. The early months of
1 996 saw this claim badly dented. A Supreme Court-appointed
commission estimated that the number of bonded workers in the

state exceeded one million. (And, of course, at the bottom of
bondage lies that old factor: debt.)
no land or assets to mortgage. People like Jagat,

Bakardhan and Bandhu Harijan have gained from this
The return of the moneylender strange altruism.
Does it make sense? Plenty. In every block, the
moneylenders have set the agenda. They have studied the
quality of the land, the infrastructure available, and the
potential levers of control. Going by this, they vary the
NUAPADA With his family owning upwards of
(Orissa):
terms of their operations.
twenty acres in an area where the average landholding is
Bhagawan, a tribal in the Kotgaon village of Bhoden,
mostly less than an acre, Biranshi is one of the big
explains: ‘Our land is rough and hard. Who wants to till
landlords of Amlapali village in Khariar block. He is also
it? The moneylenders take our produce instead.’ Besides,
one of the poorest people in a region where acute poverty
this is a desolate setting and not many would fancy coming
is the norm. ‘Most of my land,’ he says almost
here on a daily basis even during the agricultural season.
apologetically, ‘had to be leased out to the moneylenders.
There are few irrigation facilities worth the name that
We’ve had to do this in every bad year. It started in my
work. That is why the people of Bhoden have not lost much
father’s time, when he had to borrow Rs.50 from the
land. The usurers don’t want it.
moneylenders during the 1965 drought.’
Today, though he remains owner in name, Biranshi
Bhagawan, for instance, first gave quite a bit of rice
free to his creditor in part repayment of his debt. Then he
controls less than two of those twenty-five acres. The rest
sold his remaining eight bags of rice in a hurry to the same
of his land has been ‘leased’ out in a variety of ways to
moneylender. ‘My family needed cash. We had to sell as
three or four different usurers. Countless families here
fast as we could,’ he says. This resulted in his parting with
have tasted a similar reality. Their land will never return
the rice at just under Rs.2 per kg.
to their control.
Bhoden is the most impoverished block both in Gobardhan Chinda tells us he had borrowed no more
than a bag of seed from the lender. In return for this, he
Nuapada district and in all of old Kalahandi. Here too, the
had to hand over fully half of his produce in repayment.
moneylenders are in complete control. Poor peasants like
That seems hard to believe. It takes hours of interviews
Bhagawan, Lakhmidhar and scores of their neighbours
with many people in this cluster of villages to confirm this
owe quite a bit to the usurers and will be at their mercy
is not an isolated case. Others have done the same.
again next season. Yet, they seem ‘luckier’ than their
The loans arise mostly, but not always, from the
counterparts in Khariar. Many like them, in several parts
desperate need to feed their families. ‘The lender,’ says Dr.
of this block, have not lost an inch of land despite being
so dependent on the lenders. Nor are they in danger of
S. K. Pattnaik of the NGO
Vikalpa, ‘gives them paddy loans
in the lean season. In return for this, they alienate their
doing so.
produce to him at harvest time. Part of it to repay the loan
If that sounds curious, the case of Sinapali block
®nd the rest because they urgently need to sell their
seems even more odd. Here the lenders are giving out loans
produce to get some money and survive.
to peasants who, unlike those of Khariar or Bhoden, have
‘Ironically, the lender stocks up their produce — and The peasant does not reach the market with that part
during the lean season he is giving them "loans” consisting of the produce which remains after the moneylender has
of the very grain he bought from them. Only, he took it taken his cut. Since Sunday is market day, the usurers
from them at throwaway rates during harvest time. So they set up their own ‘procurement centres* along the routes of
could be selling him rice at under Rs.2 a kg and, when this remote region. And, as one of them explained, ‘We save
taking the same rice as a “loan" later on, run into interest the adivasis the trouble of travelling long distances to sell
rates that ensure they can never repay the debt.’ their produce.'
For Bhagawan, though, the problem didn’t quite end Determined to beat this, the district administration
—
with this ‘normal’ cycle. Illness in the family malaria is —
set up perhaps for the first time in the region —
—
rampant in these parts soon forced the adivasi to take regulated mandi. Here they set up an official minimum
yet another loan from the usurer. The need to buy food is, support price (MSP). This was, for example, Rs.310 and
of course, a well-known and documented route to debt. Rs.330 for fine and superfine grain.
But several villagers in the region have also landed in the The news came too late for Bhagawan: ‘After I sold the
creditors’ nets to pay for such medical treatment as can — —
rice at less than half the MSP the sarpanch told me
be obtained here. The interest rates for loans to buy about the support price,' he says regretfully. This
medicines may not be as high as those charged for grain —
happened to many. The villagers think the mandi pushed
loans, but they are not low either. Bagh Singh borrowed through with great effort by the sub-collector, Saroj Kumar
Rs. 100 for medicines and owed his creditor Rs.220 by the —
Jha a worthwhile attempt. Some believe it could succeed
year end. next year if persisted with.
Hunger, however, remains the basic impulse. In If alienation of land explains the situation in Khariar
several villages of the two blocks. Dr Pattnaik and I find and the loss of produce tells us why creditors give loans
interest rates ranging from 120 per cent to 380 per cent a without taking land in Bhoden, what explains Sinapali
year. (Of course, in one sense, some of these rates matter block? Why do usurers there patronise many who have
only in theory after an initial period. Beyond a point, the neither land nor assets? Gotti Harpal in Khalna village in
peasant’s ability to cope is so thoroughly crushed that it that block explains: 'Here, they extract labour services.
matters little whether the annual interest is 120 or 380 Since there is no employment here, we have no money to
per cent. It is only in Bhoden, though, that we come across
)
purchase anything. Since we own no land, we can only
people alienating half their produce for a bag of seed. repay in labour.’ For that labour, the moneylenders
Harigun Chinda explains it to us this way: ‘Here, you sometimes give them rice or money at less than one -fourth
don’t need land. If you have five bags of paddy, that’s more the Orissa minimum daily wage of Rs.25.
valuable than owning land in Bhoden. You can make great Which means that across Nuapada, the moneylenders
profit on it by lending it out and manipulating those in have understood the special characteristics of each area
need. Or you can own land and sink deeper and deeper and community. They have set up their operations on that
into debt. With five bags of paddy, you can get twenty. With basis. They decide what will be the terms of production
twenty acres, you can lose it all. So who wants the land?’ and extraction from block to block. So in Khariar,
moneylenders take the land of the peasants. In Bhoden,

they extract their produce. And, in Sinapali, co m mand Of migrants & mortgages
their labour virtually As a senior official in
free.
Bhubaneswar who has worked in several backward
districts later tells me: ‘No government survey can match
the information the moneylenders hold on the property,
holdings, assets, debts and needs of the peasants. They NUAPADA (Orissa): When young Sanat Podh of Kendupatti
have it all figured out.’ village gota brand new cycle as dowry, he saw it as opening
The peculiar links between land, labour, credit and up new avenues of earning. Like so many others in the
market have trapped the peasants of Kalahandi region. Nuapada-Bolangir region, he hoped to migrate on a
With formal rural credit shrinking, their plight deepens. short-term basis to Raipur in Madhya Pradesh where he
So does their dependence on the usurer. The moneylender, could earn some ‘good money’. That he would do by pulling
once a central character of late nineteenth century a rickshaw for some weeks.
literature and indeed of many newspaper reports, is now However, Sanat couldn't afford the bus ticket to
the forgotten story of
the countryside. Existing —
Raipur till he got this bicycle. It allowed him to develop
circumstances have favoured his resurgence in a big way. a fund-raising technique which he explained to me: ‘I
And the present lot could teach their predecessors a thing mortgage my cycle to the moneylender and get Rs.50. That
or two about exploitation. is, Rs.40 for the bus fare and Rs.10 for the food. And in a
few weeks in Raipur, I earn several hundred rupees. I come

back, pay the lender Rs.150, or whatever the interest has
worked out to, and redeem my bicycle.'
This happy transaction took place three times. The
fourth time Sanat returned from Raipur, the lender told
him his cycle was lost. However, the youngster was not to
worry. He would personally help Sanat look for it. A few
futile weeks later, Podh asked the lender whether it was
not wiser to inform the police. An excellent idea, said the
usurer, offering to lodge the complaint himself on Sanat’s
behalf. Pointing out that the police would want some
documentation, he took the purchase receipt of the
—
bicycle Sanat’s only proof of ownership. Its been a year
since.
Sanatnot protected in either of the two states. He
is
is a who does not qualify for
footloose, short-term worker
protection as a mi gr ant in Madhya Pradesh. In Orissa, the
dependence of his whole village on the moneylender will Inter-State Migrant Workmen's (Regulation of
ensure he can’t go beyond a point in fighting that Employment & Conditions of Service) Act, 1979.
gentleman. The Orissa labour machinery cannot act in Andhra
Curious linkages exist here between moneylending Pradesh. And there is no law requiring its counterpart in
and migrations, at least in some areas. Some migrants Andhra to intervene on behalf of migrants recruited in
seem to be doing little more than earning money with Orissa. So the contractor-moneylender has his way in this
which to pay off debts. Most laws and regulations work fashion. He deals with them only in Andhra Pradesh but
against their interests. So their fragile world is quickly tells the labour authorities there that he has hired them
shattered when things go wrong. in Orissa. Contractors using this tactic are pulling
When nineteen Oriya migrants died in a factory migrants from this region all the way to construction sites
explosion in Ropar in Punjab five years ago, the labour in Bombay, perhaps for just eight to ten weeks.
department of this state sued on behalf of their widows for The deals are veiy often tied up with ‘advances’ that
compensation. The reply was a summons from Punjab are simply binding forms of credit. A survey by Vikalpa, a
directing the widows to come and depose before a court in Bolangir-based NGO, is revealing. It shows that
that state. Most of the women had never stepped out of short-term migrants leaving this region for periods ranging
their own villages. from just a few months to two years now account for nearly
Pointing out that this made little sense, the labour 15 per cent of all migrants.
department here offered to help. It could record the Debt seems to be a common feature among the
testimony of the widows. Or extend ground support locally migrants. Take the case of Ganga Podh. He suffers whether
to anyone sent by the court to gather evidence in Orissa. he has a good harvest or a bad one. When the year is lean,
Five years have passed without the case moving an inch Ganga takes a loan from the usurer at crushing rates of
forward and the victims’ families are suffering. The interest (120 to 380 per cent) and ends up a loser. When
contractors who took the breadwinners of these the next year gives him a bumper harvest, Ganga loses out
households to Punjab have not even handed over their again as he has already pledged much of his crop to the
dues to the families. lender. It is the latter who will encash its real value on the
In quite a few places, like Badkani village in Bolangir, market.
or in Khariar in Nuapada, it seems clear that labour Meanwhile, like many in his position, Ganga scrapes
contractors have emerged a new class of moneylenders. around in off-season migrations, partly to survive, partly
‘The labour sardar gave each of us an advance of Rs.350 to pay off his debts. In the course of this unfair battle, he
to come here,' migrants from Kalahandi told me in Andhra incurs debts even at those places he migrates to from time
Pradesh. The contractor had also given them loans that to time. ‘I owe the lender in Raipur Rs.380,' he said. ‘But
would keep them coming. he knows I will be back, so he gave me some money.’ The
However, he took care to conduct his deals with them same is true of the Kalahandi migrants in the brick kilns
in the state of Andhra Pradesh. Why not in Orissa? There of Andhra Pradesh. They have incurred fresh debts there,
he would be subject to the provisions of the deeply flawed borrowing from their contractor to tide over the occasional
crisis. Advances from moneylenders who are also

contractors are emerging a push factor in migrations.
no tablets with us. We are illiterate people.’
learned that there had been yet others treated the
I
According to the Vikalpa survey, of the thousands of
same way. Unfortunately, most had worked at one site in
migrants from the Bolangir-Nuapada region, over 20 per
cent go to brick kilns in Andhra. Another 10 per cent go
Bombay for a few weeks or months and could only name
big areas like Colaba and Bandra rather than specific
out for farming and agricultural operations, 8 per cent on
locations. Back in Orissa, none seem to be in particularly
construction work and 1 1.25 per cent to pull rickshaws,
great health.
the last mostly in Madhya Pradesh. The rest go out on a
variety of menial jobs. Scheduled caste and scheduled
Were these people given steroids to boost their work
tribe families account for nearly 50 per cent of the total.
ability? Some NGO activists in Orissa, like Durga Das
Patnaik of ASRA, suspect this to be the case. He points
—
Almost all are heavily in debt some at both ends of their
out that shady construction bosses have done even worse
journey.
The number of those going out to work on construction harm than that to migrant labourers.
Which raises the question: When will the government
sites in Bombay is small but rising. In villages such as
Badkani in Bolangir, I met men like Raghunath and amend the Migrant Workmen’s Act to end such
exploitation? Or at least to make it very difficult? An
Dulabha Behera who had been to Bombay. Their
equally vital question is: When will government policies
—
experiences and those of others in Amlapali in Nuapada
deal with the reality that usurers, contractors and their
—
district and in other villages raise disturbing questions.
‘advances* are tightening their grip on some of the poorest
—
They had all enjoyed their visit usually a single
—
trip to the great metropolis and thought the Rs.30 a day
people in this country?
they had earned there was okay. It didn’t always add up
to Rs.30, though, when we worked it out. The contractors
had given them some money to attract them, but then
deducted these amounts from their wages. All conceded
that a chunk of anything they earned went to
moneylenders back home.
What happened if you fell ill in Bombay, I asked? ‘The
contractor was very nice,’ said the Beheras. 'He brought a
doctor who gave us a tablet that made us feel very good
soon after.’
When at least three others narrated a similar ‘positive’
experience, I had questions. Could they describe the
medicine? They could not. Perhaps they still had some of
the tablets with them? ‘Oh no. The supervisor stood there
while the doctor made us take it in front of him. They left
insurance premiums on cattle given to them under such

schemes. Often, the animals have been of low quality. And
Take a loan, lose your roof
often, the villagers have been ill-equipped to feed and look
after them. Several cows and buffaloes have died. It is
impossible, in most areas, to find anyone who has
successfully got the insurance money after the death of
RAMANUJNAGAR, Surguja (M.P.): Almost all the people of the cattle.
the Bamdhabhaisafolia are in the yard of Nahakul Pando’s ’The authorities seldom study the likely impact of their
house, ma kin g tiles for his roof. Everybody is working for programmes on the Pandos. They never even look at their
free, if you overlook the small quantities of mahua wine real needs,’ says Surajpur court advocate H.N.
civil
that Nahakul passes around. If he had' to buy the tiles it Shrivastav. The officials just have to fulfil targets—so
would cost him a lot of money, by the standards of the many loans given out, so many “beneficiaries”. How has it
Pando tribe. Making them all on his own would be helped Nahakul?’
time-consuming and cut into earning hours. Sometimes they do more than just fulfil targets. In
So it is good to see the whole community turn out to Wadroflhagar area, a merchant is drawing the disability
help him. This is a feature common to many adivasi pension of a crippled Pando tribal. He is also stealing a
cultures. But why has Nahakul been living without a roof chunk of his old-age pension. The collusion of petty
for several days? After much embarrassment, he speaks officialsmakes this possible. In many villages, non-tribals
of a loan of Rs.4,800 he had taken a while ago. have taken out loans in the names of adivasis. The tribals
The idea of the loan had not really excited Nahakul. mostly cannot read and write. So they are often gypped
Quite a few Pandos are now wary of loans as these have into putting their thumb impressions on documents they
often made them lose their land. But this one was a do not understand.
‘sarkari loan’, specially disbursed through the local bank, Very often, a Pando granted a loan of Rs.6,000 on
for the exclusive benefit of the adivasis. So there couldn’t Paper, gets only around half that amount in hand. The
be much harm in accepting it. rest is swallowed by bank officials and other go-betweens.
There was. ‘I took the loan of Rs.4,800 to buy two cows The unlucky ’beneficiary’, however, pays interest on Rs
(which was the core of the official scheme) but I could not 6,000. He or she also has to repay the full amount.
repay it,’ says Nahakul. ‘There was pressure to pay up the There are around 24,000 Pandos in Surguja,
instalments. I sold different things, but I have few objects concentrated in eleven blocks. They do not fall in the
of value. Finally, Isold the tiles of my roof to raise what official classification of ’primitive tribe’. Yet, they are, in
little I could,’ he explains. many ways, as badly off as their neighbours, the Korwas,
The loan that was to liberate Nahakul from his poverty who do. Various unimaginative projects costing crores of
has ended up literally costing him his roof. He doesn't have rupees have been run for this tribe. Their results have been
the cows either. His cash crunch forced him to sell them. predictably dismal.
Worse, quite a few people in his situation have paid The real problems of the tribe receive little attention.
226 Everybody Loves a Good Drought Lenders, Losers, Croofcs & Credit 227
In Nahakul's village, there is no tubewell, no electricity, no to moneylenders?’

school, no roads and no employment. On rare occasions
a development project brings them some work. Then,
government -appointed contractors tend to pay the Pandos Postscript
half the legal minimum wage of Rs.28 for their labour.
There is not a single child going to school from This obviously not a story on usury. But it’s important to look
is
Nahakul’s /alia comprising around sixty houses in at the level to which formal credit in remote rural areas has sunk
Parasrampura village of Ramanujnagar block. The nearest since the late ’80s. In that sense, it is not only about the Pandos
block is more than six kilometres away. ‘How can the little but about millions of others across the country. It’s just that the
ones go all the way?* asks Ram Sai. ‘There are many snakes forms of absurdity take on a local flavour in different areas. As
in the woods.’ Mohan Kumar Giri says, the way this system works is at least
Besides, points out Bir Sai, there isn’t much of a one factor propelling villagers towards moneylenders.
school at the end of that walk. ‘The teacher is very
patriotic. He unfailingly unfurls the national flag on
January 26 and August 15 every year,’ he says in a
mocking tone. Those are the only two days the teacher ever
shows up. He has apparently devised a way of drawing his
salary without bothering to put in a single appearance on
other days.
However, there are sudden bursts of official activity
when the government announces what seem to be
giveaways. The loan scheme that cost Nahakul his roof
comes under one of these. ‘Nahakul really thought the
government was doing something for him. How could he
know that he was merely a target to be fulfilled?’ asks
Shrivastav. Any project, he points out, is tailored to fit the
purse and priorities of governments, not those of the
Pandos or of other groups ending up as ‘beneficiaries’.
‘Nahakul and the others needed money all right,' says
advocate Mohan Kumar Giri, who has accompanied us to
the remote village, ‘but they couldn't get it for the things
they wanted. They had to take it for schemes that had no
relevance to their needs. Normally, you take a loan to save
the roof over your head. Nahakul took a loan to lose that
roof. Now do you understand why so many people still go
other small farmers in the Nuapada -Kalahandi region.

Knowing your onions in Nuapada Besides, he had an immediate problem. ‘If I had reloaded
the six quintals onto the cart, I would have killed those
bullocks. And they were not mine in the first place.’
So Thakurdas left 60 per cent of his season's produce
lying on the streets of Tarbod and went back to his village.
NUAPADA (Orissa): This time, Thakurdas Mahanand was ‘Onions are perishable. I tried for some days to sell, but
sure he had beaten the system. A scheduled caste farmer then I was needed at home. So I just gave up and left the
with a tiny holding of a quarter of an acre, he was sick of lot there.’ When he next grew onions, which was a long,
selling his onions to middlemen and merchants around long time after, he settled for an absurd price offered by
his village of Pudapalli. They made profits, he got a his local middleman. All he wanted was payment in cash.
pittance. ‘So I thought I would take my produce directly to By this time, Thakurdas knew his onions.
the Tarbod weekly market,’ he tells me. Cultivation has never been easy in Nuapada. Just 9
So Thakurdas raised some money and hired a per cent of the land here is under irrigation and 91 per
—
bullock-cart he had never owned a bullock in his life, let cent rain-fed. Yet, the rigid cartels in both Nuapada and
—
alone a cart onto which he loaded ten quintals of onions. the entire old Kalahandi region pose far more problems
This time he hoped to sell to the retailers at Tarbod himself and make things that much more difficult for the
or directly on the open market. The bullocks were cultivator.
exhausted by the end of the eighty- kilometre trip to Raju Dholakla, a senior member of the local chamber
Tarbod. of commerce, says: There are about 500 traders, including
But Thakurdas’s hopes were shattered at Tarbod. ‘No 300 small ones. But only fifteen big families really matter
one would buy from me. The rates they offered when they here.’ Those fifteen have developed linkages across and
spoke to me were grossly unfair and much lower than what between various goods, products and markets.
they gave to the middlemen who used to bring it to them ‘There are really just seven big traders in paddy,’ says
previously. It was all rigged. They knew I was desperate to Dholakia. ‘And most of the produce from here goes outside
sell. Finally, one man picked up four quintals on credit, the state.'
for which I never got the money even though the rate was Its popular image as an area of permanent scarcity
so low,’ explains Thakurdas. does Kalahandi grave injustice. In reality, it produces more
The traders’ monopoly proved effective. ‘Even though food per person than both Orissa and India as a whole do.
there were many onion buyers locally, no one could bypass But its own inhabitants consume only 25 per cent of the
them,' says Thakurdas. ‘Onions from that market go on to food produced here. The rest goes out of the region through
Khariar Road and from there to outside of Orissa. The bulk the merchant-moneylenders, causing acute local distress.
goes to Raipur in Madhya Pradesh.* ‘The rice mill owner has a monopoly over the trade in
The wholesaler-retailer-moneylender-merchant linkages paddy. Nobody else can enter it,’ says Dholakia. The same
are simply too strong for Thakurdas and thousands of families who own the rice mills are also entrenched in
Crime
pretty much every other business there is. You can walk
through the main market in Nuapada and not find any
shop there owned by an Oriya local. Marwari traders from
Raipur and other parts of Madhya Pradesh own most of
&
them.
There are few spheres of production into which the
trader networks have not entered, very few where they are
No
not in control. Raipur is clearly the major base of such
networks, whatever the goods or produce. A few hours at
the Orissa-Madhya Pradesh border can be instructive.
Punishment
Most of the trucks entering Nuapada-Kalahandi are
empty. Most of those headed for Raipur are full.
‘The same groups,’ says a senior official, ‘are into
usury through many tiers of intermediaries. They give
capital to some merchant- moneylenders, who may in turn
give out sums to smaller lenders and so on. Yes, the
Kalahandi area has good production figures. But, the
truth is that a huge potential in agriculture even now
remains untouched.'
When there is so much money to be made from
usurious operations and rigged markets, there is very little
incentive for productive investments in agriculture. Even
poor Thakurdas, at the bottom rung of this ladder, has
drawn his own conclusions about that. ‘Now I grow onions
for myfamily and myself. As for my main produce,
whatever I grow, I sell to the trader before the harvest.'
Organisations of small farmers have begun to emerge

and are trying to change that situation. Bodies like the
Banabashi Sangha, Jagruk Shramik Sanghatan and
others are coming up with methods, some of them quite
creative, to help farmers get a better deal. But it will be a
long time before Thakurdas takes his onions to the
market.
some parts of rural India can be quite an

G oing to court in
experience. Many dalits and adivasis have found

Often, their own lawyers treat them very badly. The
so.
crimes
it
reported in this section do begin with those tried in the courts.

But they go beyond them. There are crimes against the most
defenceless. Against those too weak to access the courts. Or
even actions defiant of the law itself —where court decisions are
flouted or sought to be subverted.
Then there are crimes against whole communities. Like
those committed by ‘mainstream’ society against the Parhaiyas,
for example. There are crimes that a stupid political regime and
its bureaucracy perpetrate. Like those suffered by the Korwas,
for instance. There are also crimes that some commit in setting
one community against another.
There are the crimes emerging within groups that were
earlier free of those particular sort of offences. Like bonded
labour within the Bonda there are also the follies
tribe. Lastly,
committed in the name of development. Like the mining of coal

by certain methods in Godda. Some of the things that happened
there might have been done with the best of intentions. But their
effect in destroying the homes and livelihood of many was,
nonetheless, a crime.
Decades ago, K. Suresh Singh, then deputy

Bhoodan — the last believer commissioner of Palamau, sought to promote the whole
area as a bhoodan zone. To this day, its people recall his
name with respect. The spirit and idealism of the time saw
some real achievements. But a good deal of those have
come unglued. The voluntarism displayed by the
LATEHAR, Palamau (Bihar): Gopal Singh has fought a landowning classes was largely driven by opportunism.
curious battle. Decades ago, Vinoba Bhave's bhoodan And the descent from idealism to racketeering in the
movement came to Palamau. At its best, this was a noble bhoodan movement has been ugly. Palamau has had and
attempt to persuade rich landowners to voluntarily give still has some of the finest administrative talent at the top
up some of their property for redistribution to the poor and levels. Even that has not helped halt this slide.
landless. At the height of the movement, Gopal’s There are startling exceptions. Bishwamber Dubey of
neighbour gifted land to the cause. A very generous Chandwa, in his late sixties, still gets around on his
gesture. Except that the land belonged not to the bicycle, helping the landless. He is all over the place, trying
neighbour but to Gopal Singh with whom he had a running to settle disputes, to retrieve plots grabbed by corrupt
feud. Gopal then spent close to twenty years fighting to landlords. For Dubey, sub- divisional president of the NGO
regain possession of the land his neighbour had ‘donated’ Rachnatmak Karyakarta Samaj, is one of the last true
under the movement. believers. He is also a man of great integrity. Ironically,
Shakoor Mia was another who gave generously in this makes him the most sincere chronicler of the downfall
bhoodan. He gifted eighty-eight acres of land in of a movement to which he was given more than half his
Vinobanagar. That is an area located at the top of a hill. life. Onething disgusts him above all else: that the very
Over the years, great sums of public money went in landlords who were to donate land under bhoodan in fact
developing this remote place and its facilities. That meant utilised it to acquire more illegal holdings.
a sub-centre, a road, a school ... In reality, nothing more ‘It started idealistically, with a padyatra by Vinoba
than one kutcha road exists. Shakoor Mia's kin have not Bhave in 1952. And by 1957, redistribution of land
suffered as a result of his altruism. Their benami lands actually began,' says Dubey. Bhave’s belief was that a
today exceed their pre-bhoodan holdings by many acres. direct plea to the hearts of the landlords could work. If it
Muneshwar Singh of Rehaldag village was shouting did, they would, on their own, give up some of their surplus
loudly when I met him outside the Latehar court. He had, land and these plots would go to landless peasants or
apparently, reason to be angry. More than twenty-five marginal farmers. Most of those holdings were illegal,
years ago, Mangra and Ganga Oraon had donated land anyway One part of the idea was that voluntarism would
.
under bhoodan. And Muneshwar's father, Bittu Singh, replace militant, often violent, land struggles. Bhave even
was the beneficiary. Over a quarter of a century later, the founded an ashram in Palamau from where the bhoodan
land remains with the two Oraons. But the legal battle for drive in the region would work.
control of it has worn out Muneshwar. Things didn’t work out quite the way he thought they
236 Everybody Loves a Good Drought Crime & No Punishment 237
would. years ago. Rasool's son did not stop with grabbing back
‘Even Vlnobaji’s ashram in this district has not been what his father had donated. He reportedly went on to
spared,’ laments Dubey, ‘It has been grabbed. That too, by usurp even the little plot of land that Jaffer had always
the very people who were to protect it. Now, only a well owned. The list of such incidents seems endless. And the
survives from the original ashram.' Dubey has every fact tales of the many litigants thronging the courts are
on bhoodan and land distribution at his fingertips. The bewildering. There are some patterns, though.
figures he rattles off show that ‘about 2,734 acres were Several landowners who donated land never really
distributed in 268 villages to 1,032 beneficiaries’ in three parted with it in practice. Some gifted land only to take it
blocks of Palamau. Those were Mahuadanr, Barvadi and back not very much later. Some ‘donated’ lands that never
Garu. belonged to them. A few claimed ‘compensation’ for the
Hardly impressive figures in this huge district. But trees, fruit and bushes on the land they were ‘giving up’.
even these, says Dubey, can be misleading. ‘They include
50 per cent land that is uncultivable and some other very • In a few cases, the unhappy ‘donor’ is a tiny farmer.
low grade plots. Besides, since 1988, 1,500 acres have Such a person would own an acre or less. His land, like
been distributed in the Balumath block but no formal deed Gopal Singh’s, is likely to have been gifted away by rivals
has been given to the new owners. The same happened manipulating records.
with 400 acres in Chandwa block. And about 75 per cent • Some landlords re -seized the ‘donated’ plots and threw
of all "beneficiaries” are bogged down in litigation they can
out their ‘beneficiaries’. In some cases, the victims had
ill afford.’
some tiny plots of their own as well. The landlords
Some of those cases are driving the courts crazy. In
grabbed those too. Many land -related disputes run well
Sherakh village of Chandwa block, one man had ‘donated’
beyond two decades. Often, the ‘beneficiaries’ have been
land jointly owned by him with three others. He gave away crushed by the costs.
not only his own share but that belonging to the other two
• Ih the early years after abolition of zamindari, some
as well. They went to court and the case has stayed there
landlords came up with a smart move. They vested the
for ages. In the village where the gram sabha grabbed
same surplus land with both bhoodan and the
Vinoba's ashram, ‘it also dissolved the original bhoodan
government. That led to massive confusion, with both
committee. Next, it destroyed all the relevant papers. The
those entities trying to take control of the land. The
ruling group then seized even the common property land
lengthy litigation that followed while each fought the
of the village.’
other, enabled the landlords to keep the land much
In Chandwa, the kin of Lai Kundemath Sahudeo are
longer.
challenging the bhoodan generosity of the late landlord.
‘Sahudeo gave the land to Vinobaji and adivasis are now
'Some gains have been made over time,’ says political
tilling it. They cannot afford costly legal battles. But his
activist Narendra Chaubey. ‘They are the work of people
kin want the land back.’ In the Latehar court, Jaffer Mia
like Suresh Singh, some of those who came after him and
fights to regain land donated to him by Rasool Mia thirty
individuals like Bishwamber Dubey. People like Dubeyji
play a crucial role in monitoring the process and fighting

The sorrows of Subhaso
for justice. But in the real world, can we depend on the
large-heartedness of the landlords? The impact of people
like Dubeyji in ensuring fair play is great, but it would be
greater where political forces having the will to do so
s imp ly take control of surplus land and see that it goes to KALIPUR, Surguja The auction was being held in
(M.P.J:
the landless.’ near total darkness.There was no shortage of curious
Dubeyji seems to know this too. But his boundless onlookers, though. It was 9 p.m., yet almost the whole
faith remains unshaken. As we depart in our jeep from his village was there. But there was only one buyer present
office, he sets off on his cycle, moving the wheels of justice for the land being auctioned. The timing had been
towards yet another village. arranged to make precisely this possible.
The real buyer was Rajendra Pandey, an employee of
the forest department. The nominal buyer, his
brother-in-law. The adivasi woman losing her land was
Subhaso, a Gond tribal. The village was Kalipur. This was
Surguja, one of India’s poorest districts, with a tribal
majority.
Subhaso had repay a loan taken from the
failed to
Bhumi Vikas bank. And the bank put up her 9.73-acre
landholding for auction. In the process, those behind the
auction were violating virtually every law relating to such
transactions in Madhya Pradesh.
To begin with, Subhaso had taken no loan.
‘Jaiswal saab (the local mahajan or moneylender)
asked my husband to put his thumbprint on a document,
saying he would fetch us rations from the town,’ says
Subhaso. On the strength of that thumbprint, Jaiswal
saab took a loan of Rs. 7, 700 in her husband's name. That
too, under a scheme meant only for adivasis.
Using their, names, he also managed to acquire a
pumpset and have a well dug on his land. Or rather, on
her land. When Jaiswal first showed up in Kalipur with
his family, Subhaso’s husband generously gave him a
couple of acres free to build a home.
‘See how he hasrepaid us,* wails Subhaso. Both decided to close in on her after her husband died, knowing
Jaiswal and his son are dead. But the loan, amounting how helpless she was.’ Another estimate by locals places
with interest to Rs. 13,720 by 1986, has crushed the old the market value of that land at between Rs.25,000 to
lady. Rs.40,000 an acre. Either way, at the end of it, Subhaso
The bank, which had not sent out any notice in the had little beyond her homestead land.
preceding years, now woke up. It suddenly sprang the trap The bank more than recovered its money on this
—
on Subhaso who had no idea that such a loan existed. absurd deal, points out Giri. So what if they had taken the
The bank officials too were breaking the law. It is illegal to real value of the land into account? Subhaso should have
auction, alienate or transfer adivasi land here. got a sizeable sum even if they had repaid her only the
Indeed, Section 170 B of the M. P. Land Revenue Code amount left over after deduction of the ‘loan’.
allows the state to reopen any dubious deal relating to But surely, with every law on her side, redress was
Adivasi land all the way back to 1956. ‘One of Arjun possible? ‘I went twice to the collector and each time he
Singh’s more progressive contributions to politics,’ as an said, “Subhaso, you go till your land. No one can stop you.”
official here puts it. Yet, Section 170 B did not work for But Pandey threw me off forcibly. How could I resist him?’
Subhaso. She had never heard of it in any case. asks Subhaso. Given his job, he could use official
‘Every step taken was illegal and the officials knew it,' machinery or power in the coercion process. Typically,
says advocate Mohan Kumar Giri, of the Surajpur Civil tribals are most fearful of the forest department. It is the
Court. The auctioneer added to the crime. ’He came in the — —
most powerful and often the most heartless branch of
morning and there were many merchants from nearby government that they deal with directly on a daily basis.
with their thailis (bags) bulging,’ says Subhaso’s son, Besides, Kalipur is a remote, isolated village. It was
Kamesh. 'But Pandey took the auctioneer aside and had even more so in 1986 when her crisis began. Each trip
a talk with him. Soon, they disappeared till the night, Subhaso made to the collectorate was a harassment. It
returning only after all the other buyers had left.* meant walking scores of kilometres.
They then sold the land, currently valued at over Rs.2 However, the sub-registrar’s court passed strictures
lakhs—for Rs. 1 7,500. Pandey smartly took the land in his against the land grabbers. The sub-registrar of cooperative
brother-in-law’s name to cover his own tracks as a societies, R. P. Bhatti, held that all the officials involved
government employee. Nor did the bank bother to return had violated a large number of regulations. He also advised
the Rs.3,780 theoretically due to Subhaso after the Subhaso to seek redress in an appropriate court.
deduction of the loan amount. They pocketed that too. But Subhaso was broke. The collector had changed so
‘I begged them,' says Subhaso, ‘how I begged them. she tried the next one. He too, in theory, upheld her rights.
They knew I had taken no loan. But they auctioned my He even gave her a letter for the local tehsildar, instructing
land.’ And at an impossible rate. 'Even at the time,' says him to take action. The tehsildar pocketed the letter
Laltha Prasad, a neighbour, ‘that land was worth a handed over to him by the innocent Subhaso. ‘He laughed
fortune, more than Rs. 15,000 an acre. Yet, they disposed at me and said: “You will never get this land back, fight all
it off to Pandey at less that Rs.2, 000 an acre. I think they you want,” and sent me away.'
After that, Subhaso never went back to a government

Ranged against a coalition of moneylenders, forest
office. Has anyone seen my land?
department staffers, bank officials and a corrupt tehsildar,
she found herself defeated.
‘The adivasi woman is the most vulnerable and the
least protected of Indians,* says advocate H.N.
Shrivastava. He has fought cases like Subhaso ‘s at the KACHAN, Palamau (Bihar): Ranbir Korwa has a problem:
Surajpur civil court. ‘In some instances, such persons can he can’t find his land. A member of the desperately poor
end up drowning in litigation. Often, they spend more Korwa tribe, Ranbir was the beneficiary of a surplus land
money than their land is worth. Years go by in just sending redistribution programme of the Bihar government in
out notices. The legal system is so tedious.’ 1991. He became the proud owner of 1 .80 acres. Two years
Subhaso has no money left for litigation. Nor for later, he is yet to find the land.
anything else. The four-member family is in dire straits, 1 don't know where the plot is,' he tells me mournfully
eking out a living from grossly underpaid casual labour. when I meet him Kachan village. The patta in his
in
Subhaso can’t even speak about it coherently any more, possession names the village as Sarguha, the katha
choking on tears that stain the tattered sub-registrar's number as 2, and the plot number as 424/26. It also
order of 1988 which she hands across to us. records the land area as 1.80 acres. ‘But,’ says Ranbir,
‘Subhaso’s is more than a personal case,’ says ’there is no real address on it, sir. The numbers did not
Shrivastava. ‘Her plight of that of thousands of
is typical help me find the plot.’
adivasis. They simply cannot access their rights or enforce Ranbir’s case is not unique. Phaguni Devi, also a
them. It matters little how progressive the law is. In her Korwa, was allotted land in the same village on the same
case, you have a picture of their world. Of the oppression —
day as Ranbir. Her plot number is 424/27 making them
of adivasis, of how the government machinery works. Of —
neighbours and the land measures 1 .92 acres. It’s just
the fraudulent local set-up, the tediousness of court what she has always wanted. All she has to do is find it.
procedures, the ruthlessness of the moneylender. And The fact that the patta lists two borders of the plot as van
how keeping the tribals illiterate makes all this possible in or forest does not help.
the first place.' Many similar cases dot the rocky road of land
For just a moment, looking at her strange visitors, redistribution in Bihar. Here in Palamau, a number of
hope reappears in Subhaso: ‘Do you think something will Korwa tribals find themselves in this situation. (The main
happen if I go to the new collector?’ There is a new body of the tribe, particularly the Pahadi Korwas, live in
government as well. How both will answer her question Surguja district across the border in Madhya Pradesh.)
could decide the fate of thousands. Lending complexity to their plight is the state’s land survey
that began in the second half of the ’80s. This opened up
new avenues for land-grabbing and other forms of
corruption. Coming on top of those already in place, it
proved fated for some. And the huge bureaucratic errors to make such visits becomes greater.
built into such exercises made things worse. ‘From big landlords down to small local centres of
Any land distribution scheme rouses hope among the power like the postmaster, school headmaster or
poor here. Too often, their actual experiences are not advocate,’ says a senior official, ‘many have taken part in
unlike those of Ranbir and Phaguni Devi. But can’t that the land-grab. Earlier, this often involved direct physical
pair, for instance, have their problem sorted out by a visit violence. But with the coming of the land survey,
to the circle office? manipulation has gained importance. It can be more
‘Ihave made several trips to the circle office,' says effective. The karamchari doing the survey is bribed. And
Raribir, ‘but the circle karamchari wouldn't let me see the he records the poor peasant’s lands as belonging to those
officer. He wanted a bribe of Rs.50 per acre, so I would who have bribed him.’
have to pay around Rs.80. Where do I have that kind of This creates curious situations, as in Khudag village.
money?' It is a gigantic sum for a poor Korwa. So too for Here, land belonging to Ganpat Singh and other tribals is
other groups, in a region where families have gone into clearly listed in their pattas, but the karamchari doing the
bondage borrowing half that amount. survey has recorded their land in the name of a postmaster
The dispensation at the panchayat level here hardly from another village, Lavarpur. And he did this after
matters. The circle officer is the real power on revenue and extracting a bribe of Rs. 2, 000 from Ganpat, who has lost
land matters and in this small world, his powers are both his land and all his money. Coming atop decades of
immense. For poor adivasis trekking long distances to subtle and not-so-subtle land-grab, these developments
reach him, it is always an arduous and often a futile have put more pressure on the poor. The tribals and
pilgrimage. Yet, nothing can happen without him. harijans can hardly cope with lengthy litigation. When the
Ganori Korwa, who is also hunting for his ‘allotted’ grabber is an advocate, for instance, this becomes
land in another village, says: ‘The C.O.'s office is thirty impossible. But they do fight back, at great risk, in many
kilometres away. Just going their costs money.' It also ways. And there are factors in Palamau that help them.
takes him away for hours from the crucial business of The Chhotanagpur Samaj Vikas Sansthan, an NGO
gathering food enough for that day. He sums up the headed here by Shatrughan Kumar, is in the fray. At
standard responses at the C.O.’s office: ‘The C.O. won't let present this body is handling cases of land-grab totalling
us in. The C.O. is in a meeting. The C.O. is out of town. 8,000 hectares on behalf of the victims. The focus right
The C.O. won’t take note of us, or makes us wait all day now, says Kumar, is on ‘four blocks in which we are
but won't see us. The chaprasi wants money to let us meet —
working Chainpur, Ranka (Garwha), Bhanderia and
the C.O.' Barwadi. In just those blocks, over 5,000 tribal and
The fate of an adivasi or a harijan visiting a harijan families have suffered land-grab.’
government office is not a pleasant one. At more than one It also seems common here to allow marginalis ed
such office I visit during more than fifty days in Bihar, the groups to settle on *GM’ land. That is, ghalyar mazaruwa
adivasis met with contempt and humiliation. Yet, as the or government wasteland. After they make the land
upheavals caused by the land survey continue, their need cultivable through hard work, they get thrown out
physically. The Chhotanagpur Tenancy Act offers

protection, in theory at least, to tribal land. Even an
adivasi wanting to transfer land can part with it only to
The pain of being a Parhaiya
other tribals living in the same police station area. That
too needs the permission of the deputy co mm issioner.
In reality, tribal land does pass into non -tribals hands.
This is most likely in places where the adivasis do not have BALUMATH, Palamau (Bihar): It took some hours to
political bodies to fight for them. The Sarwangin Gram persuade the men to return from the fields and the forest
Vikas Kendra, an NGO surveying the issue, has found where they were hiding. Immediately on sighting us, they
hundreds of such cases in just a handful of Palamau had fled leaving the women and children behind. Pakri was
villages. one of those rare Parhaiya settlements where our vehicle
The Act does not afford even theoretical protection to could actually reach within a few kilometres of the village.
this harijan land. So it is now the main target of land But that meant a jeep. And a jeep means police. And police
grabbers. Almost every member of the Bhuiya harijan means beatings and bestiality.
community I stay with in Latehar has lost some land in Much negotiation followed, with a local leader of the
this way. It also means that most of the litigation now CPI(M) stepping in. The men then emerged, slowly,
coming up in the courts involves harijan land grabbed by fearfully. He had to assure them that I was not from the
an array of sharks. police or any other branch of authority.
But a host of organisations, political parties and For the Parhaiyas, a declining group that is also one
others are fighting the usurpers. To an extent, even the of India’s poorest, continue to bear the stigma of a
ultra-left Maoist Communist Centre (MCC) seems to have ‘criminal’ tribe. This was a label pinned on them by the
a sobering impact on landlord terror. With such a wide British. Very often, the police respond to any crime in the
array of forces and highly sympathetic senior district Balumath block by picking up all the Parhaiyas they can
officials in the battle, it can perhaps be won. But until lay their hands on. This happens even if there is not the
then, Ranbir Korwa will have to keep searching for his remotest ground for suspecting their involvement in the
land. offence.
Less than fifteen hours before I reached Pakri, the
policehad picked up young Gopal Parhaiya. 'They gave us
no reason, mentioned no charge, nothing,' said Ganga
Parhaiya. Later, at the police station, an officer told me
that they had picked up Gopal ‘in connection with a petty
theft that occurred some time back’. When? ‘About two
years ago,’ he said. What about the large-scale illegal
mining going on quite openly within two kilometres of the
police station? That isn’t our department’s problem he ’
replied. came along. And finding jobs in government offices is not

‘We can’t escape even if we work for the police,’ said easy at the best of times for the Parhaiyas. No one is willing
Bhola Parhaiya laughing. He ought to know. He slaved as to give them character certificates. At one stage, a
a domestic 'helper' in a police officer’s house two years ago. kind-hearted official gave some of them certificates on his
So did Ganga Parhaiya. Once, they got a payment of Rs. 1 personal responsibility. ‘Because of this, four of our people
each for their labours of several days at his house. To joined the Home Guards,’ said Turva Parhaiya. ‘But after
which a local landlord added another Rs. 10 for work they
had put in at his place. With this, they purchased two kilos
of rice each. But the police arrested them on their way
home, along with Phaguna Parhaiya, and then beat them
up. The fact that they were able to afford rice at all was
proof enough of crime. ‘Nothing we said mattered,’ said
Ganga Parhaiya. The policemen simply said, "How else
can scum like you get money for these purchases except
by thieving?” and beat us after taking us into custody.'
Just days after their release, members of the ultra-left
Maoist Communist Centre (MCC) paid the villagers a visit,
After lecturing the Parhaiyas on the evils of crime, they
made an example of Phaguna, whom they accused of
‘looting the forests’. Since the MCC earns high revenues
from the levy it imposes on local timber smugglers, this
seemed a strange charge. It did not stop them, however,
from thrashing Phaguna, who fell very ill thereafter and
died.
Petty officials of the forest department are another
source of constant torment. ‘Even if we're found carrying
dried out, ant-eaten wood, they come after us,' said Turva
Parhaiya. ‘During the drought, several trees and other
growth dried up completely. The forest ranger had us
beaten for using that wood. He said: “You first cut this
—
lakdi and then dried it out" then his men punished us.’
Along with the Birhor tribals, the Parhaiyas were
among the worst hit at the height of the drought and A Parhaiya woman cooking the balls of getii that are a crucial part of a diet
near-famine conditions affecting Palamau till mid- 1993. innocent of sugar and short on pulses* When the drought came the trees and
,
vegetation dried up, getii disappeared and a few Parhaiyas died* Top-level district
They could not find work on even the relief projects that administrators, however, averted an even worse disaster with some excellent crisis
management*
that officer they are all jobless.'

left, firewood as their fuel source.
‘When the drought came,’ said Ganga Parhaiya, ‘we In Pakri, contractors and corrupt officials built these
found it almost impossible to get the gettt roots and moulla houses that collapsed with the first rains that followed. Of
leaves (a species of spinach).' The Parhaiyas’ tiny plots of course, not a single official visited the village thereafter.
land are unable to support them. Even as we spoke, a ‘Even where the walls have not collapsed,' said the NGO
young woman was cooking the balls of getti that are a activist, 'you will find a whole colony near the Balumath
crucial part of a diet innocent of sugar and short on pulses. block HQ, deserted for two reasons. One, because the
When the drought came, the trees and vegetation dried internal construction is so poor and two, they fear having
up, getti disappeared and a few Parhaiyas died. Luckily, a the police so close by.’
few top-level district administrators came up with some The defensive mechanisms of the Parhaiyas work
excellent crisis management. That contained what had all non-stop. No youngster in Pakri stays in the village at
the makings of a catastrophe across the district. Many —
night the police might come by. They sleep on the edge
more would otherwise certainly have died. of the fields bordering the woods. Not a child here currently
The Parhaiyas, though, had to deal with the lower goes to school. ‘Anyway, no teacher is willing to come,' said
rungs of a machinery deeply imbued with contempt, even Turva Parhaiya. Once, Ramachandra Parhaiya started a
hatred for them. And that was not pleasant. Attempts at school. Having studied up to the sixth standard, he was
rehabilitating the Parhaiyas have not been a great success the most highly educated member of this tribe here. ‘After
at the best of times. The ‘houses’ built for them under the some months, the police took him away on some charge
Indira Awas scheme are not yet five years old. 'Yet,' and that was the end of it,' said Ganga Parhaiya.
laughed the NGO activist who had accompanied me, ‘their When Martin Tirkey, a well-meaning and educated
ruins look worse than those of the old Palamau qila (fort).’ tribal from the block HQ, volunteered to run a school here,
Turva Parhaiya smiled at me rather apologetically as the government immediately appointed him. He ran his
he stood before the ruins of his Indira Awas Yojana house. school honestly for several months, said the NGO activist,
‘Bilku.1 bekar hain (it is totally useless),' he said. He spoke
‘but quit when he received no salary and no help of any
somewhat sheepishly, as if afraid we would somehow hold kind. During his time, Tirkey made a useful survey on how
him responsible for the disaster. Seeing we weren't doing many Parhaiyas were in jail, how many in destitution. I
that, he went on: The roof fell down with the first monsoon, don’t think any local official has bothered to see the report.
less than two months after it was put up. As you can see, If ever a community can say it was driven to crime, it is
all the structures they put up came down this way.’ this one. The records of those among them who have gone
Not a soul has ever stayed in most of these. That seems to jail reveal the petty nature of their offences. But they
typical of most Indira Awas colonies in the remote areas. are always being punished, crime or no crime. Society has
In many places, these curiously misshapen structures tried and convicted these people without even bringing a
stand deserted. Sometimes, they house cattle or grai n. charge against them.*
They are suffocating, dark, damp, dilapidated sheds with
no ventilation. And impossible for people to live in who use
habits from us,’ says an assistant sub-inspector of police,

Bondas in bondage Anirudha Nayak, candidly. Nayak, posted at the
Mudulipada settlement, is something of an authority on
crime amongst the Bondas.
The tribe records a stunning homicide rate
sometimes crossing fifty murders a year. This means that
MUDULIPADA, Malkangiri (Orissa): An adivasi labourer of every 1,000 Bondas, nearly twelve die this way. That,
held in bondage by another tribal? Unusual. More so points out a police officer in Koraput, would be an
among the ancient tribes. Yet. that’s exactly how Mangala outrageous figure anywhere in the world. For such a tiny
Kirsani and some other Bondas like him live. They work population, it is truly alarming. The murder ratio for New
as bonded labourers on the fields of other Bondas. York city is 13.2 per hundred thousand of population,
Needing to raise the bride price at the time of his making the Bonda Hills many times more violent. Here,
marriage, Mangala borrowed two oxen and Rs. 1 ,000 from however, the killings are almost entirely within the tribe.
Budha Kirsani. Later, he was unable to clear the debt. He Things sire beginning to improve, helped by changing
is now Budha’s bonded labourer. Mangala could settle the attitudes within the Bondas. Some project officials and
debt by performing free labour for a set period of time. But sections of the local administration have also put in much
Budha will not allow this. Until he repays the sum in cash, effort to make things better. In recent years the ratio of
he remains bonded. So he not only does Budha's work in homicides has fallen to around six to eight per thousand.
the field but also serves as a domestic labourer in his And there were just seven murders in the first half of 1 993,
house. His pregnant wife continues to work in the fields the last period for which figures Eire available. This
to keep them both going. represents a very sharp drop. Violence against outsiders
Didn’t the block development officer (BDO) settle remains a minor worry.
Mangala’s case under the law? ‘No one did anything for ‘Try understanding why even the little violence against
me,’ Mangala says to us at his house in Bandiguda village non -Bondas occurs at all,’ says a local NGO activist. ‘A
in the Bonda Hills. ‘Please free me,’ he pleads. The official Bonda entering the haat is accosted at the edge of the
with whom I’ve trudged for hours to reach this place village by merchcints who grab whatever he has. They
scribbles a note to the BDO and hands it over to Mangala. shove a few rupees and maybe some liquor into his hands.
The Bondas are an ancient tribe found nowhere except Thus, they arbitrarily decide the price and value of his
in Malkangiri. In official reckoning, there were just 4,431 produce or goods. Later, the Bonda, believing this is the
Bondas in 1990. The Malkangiri collector, G.K. Dhal, says accepted mode, does the same, especially when drunk.
the Bondas appear in a list of the fifteen most primitive —
This often results in violence and the Bonda is a tough
tribes in the world. warrior.’
Their interaction with ‘mainstream society’ has not Crimes other than homicide, says Nayak, are very few.
been a great success. And bonded labour seems to be just ‘And even those involved in killings mostly turn themselves
one outcome of it. ‘They pick up many of these (criminal) in at the station. Often, while doing so, they bring with
them the news of the event.” Sometimes, a Bonda

first
the Bondas. News of the resurgence of bonded labour
warrior who has slain another shows up with the body of maddens him.
the victim and turns himself in. Many of the killings arise ‘Curiously,* says Sahu of crime in the tribe, ‘it was the
from clan rivalries dating back severed generations. prison aspect that helped me make a breakthrough with
‘There is no crime-solving expertise or detection the Bondas. In those days we were still working hard to
required here,” says Nayak. ‘These people don’t lie. I have win their confidence. I used to ar range for family visits to
seldom come across anyone here who, after committing a the jail and they were all very grateful for that.’ Sahu
criminal act, would not admit to it. Sometimes, from the concurs with Nayak’s view that the prison experience gave
more remote areas, we might know of a killing a day or two some of them new and unpleasant habits.
after it happens. The elders of the village may first discuss They also seem to have picked up a few from some of
the issue and then call us in, but there’s no lying. the pop anthropologists visiting the Bonda hills to ‘study’
Theft and burglary, in the sense we know it in this ancient tribe. Many of the instant experts seem to have
mainstream society, is almost unknown. Yes, one clan been on assignment for some journal or the other in the
may get drunk and eat the cows of another in pursuit of West. And mostly, they seem to have contented themselves
some ancient vendetta. But they would proudly announce with sticking to the ‘safe’ villages. That is, those
their deed.' immediately next to the Mudulipada settlement.
The problems really begin, says Nayak, when they get Their legacy still remains. In these villages, the sight
sent to prison in Jeypore. The same Bondas change after of a camera will bring Bondas around you demanding
a while there. 'There they meet criminals from the money. Sadly, they even adopt ridiculous poses to please.
mainstream and it has an impact on them. Before going Someone has clearly paid them for this in the past,
to prison, they might be reluctant to tell you something, tutoring them to fit preconceived stereotypes in the West.
but whatever they tell you is the truth. Once they've been We have no such experiences in the really interior villages
to prison, they learn to lie from our mainstream criminals.’ that we reach on the third and fourth day in the Bonda
However, a crime other than homicide has clearly Hills. There, many have never seen a camera.
emerged: bonded labour. Worse has happened in the past. The traditional
‘This bonded labour headache seems to have arisen Bonda woman wears a single small piece of cloth. This is
during the past three to four generations only,’ says Raghu only a metre in length, about 40 cm in width, and worn
Nath Sahu, in Bhubaneswar. Sahu was project leader of around the waist. Some Western visitors have misused the
the official Bonda Development Agency for eleven years till photographs they have taken of these women. In this, they
1 987 and is an outstanding expert on the tribe. ‘I identified were aided by shady tour operators from Bhubaneswar.
144 such cases of bondage,’ he says. 'We were surprised That has led, understandably, to curbs of a sort on their
by its extent. But we freed those workers.’ Sahu now works visits here.
as a senior research the Tribal & Harijan
officer at One zealous official even told the Bondas to take into
Research-cum-Training Institute in the state capital. custody any foreigner they saw using a camera. This led,
Though he has left Malkangiri, he retains his interest in shortly after, to an elderly, bona fide and frightened French
anthropologist being marched some twenty kilometres

over hostile terrain by the Bondas. Luckily, they did this After the second silence
to turn him over into official custody. So he suffered no
more than exhaustion and embarrassment before his
release.
Back at Bandiguda, village elder Sama Kirsani speaks
JOGIKHURA, Garwha {Bihar): It reads like the script for a
to us of Mangala’s case. He says: ‘It is a practice that who
film on the essence of evil. Almost thirty years ago,
borrows when in need must repay or be punished.’ He
powerful landlords grabbed over 180 acres of land from
agrees, though, that this is no ancient custom. The older
Kharwar tribals and harijans in the then unknown village
method was to extract work for a set period of time from
of Jogikhura. Led by political activists and aided by a few
the debtor. A council of villagers used to decide on how
honest officials, the villagers fought to get back their land.
much work the debtor would do, and for how long.
The struggle led to a court order more than a decade later,
The ‘integration into the mainstream’ of adivasis is a
in 1976, restoring the land to the tribals and harijans.
staple of government programmes relating to the ancient
Jogikhura, then in Garwha division of Palamau. shot
tribes. Here it seems to be acquiring connotations that
to national fame. Documentary maker Sukhdev celebrated
perhaps nobody intended it should. ’If this is what
that battle in his award-winning After the Silence. The film
mainstream means,' says the project official
came out shortly after the end of the Emergency. But
accompanying us to Bandiguda, ‘maybe it’s better if we all
fifteenyears later, the dispossessed are still to regain
remain unintegrated.'
control of the land. The landlords have also struck back
by laying the basis for what could be the region’s first ever
communal riot. (Palamau stayed calm even at the height
of theAyodhya frenzy.)
After managing to getaround the land restoration
order, the landlords made their next move. They settled a
community of poor Muslims on the disputed lands. Today,
after the second silence, the tribals and harijans on the
one hand and the Muslims on the other are in conflict. The
tension is deadly. All the groups are very poor and almost
completely illiterate. Some actors in this drama are no
longer present, yet dominate the stage. The shadow of one
still hangs over Jogikhura. That is Jagnarain Pathak,
veteran Congress leader and once president of the party’s

district committee of Palamau. A local Sahu landowner
tells us the story:
At one point during the Emergency, officials arrested

‘The Pathaks bought around fourteen acres here,
Jagnarain Pathak’s nephew after he bullied villagers and
perhaps in the early ‘60s,’ says the Sahu. He alleges that
confiscated their cattle. Not for long, though. ‘I went to
‘they then seized around 160 acres from the Kharwar
Indiraji in Delhi and saw to it that he was released by
tribals and the harijans. ‘This displaced at least
twenty-five Kharwar families and an equal number of
Jagannath Mishra!’ exults Pathak. Speaking to me from
his sickbed in Daltonganj where I called on him, he relives
harijans.’ Meanwhile, the tribals and harijans have rustled
and administrative orders for us to the battle. Soon after his visit to Delhi came the transfer
up old deeds, court
some of them falling apart, are quite of officials whom Pathak saw as hostile. Now, at ninety,
look at. The records,
he is frail but still mentally alert.
revealing.
Yet, Pathak constantly contradicts himself on one
‘Look at the incredible greed involved,’ exclaims
claim; that he never owned ‘a single naya paisa of land' in
Shatrughan Kumar of the Chhotanagpur Samaj Vikas
Jogikhura. This, at one level, is technically true. The
Sansthan. The CSVS is a body that has vigorously fought
land-grab. The old papers show that those done out of their
names on the record are those of Gobind Pathak, Anand
land included the poorest among the farmers. As Kumar
Mohan Pathak, Alok Pathak, Avinash Kumar Pathak and
others. All are children or relatives of Jagnarain. At the
points out: ‘Some have lost little plots of 0.12 acre; some,
pieces of land not exceeding 0.35 acre.’ One peasant lost
same time, the politician’s recollections are replete with
all he had —0.03 acre (or decimals, as people here call
expressions like ‘I bought the land ... I sold the land
I decided All of which show he was the real power
’
. . .
them). ‘How can you even think of stealing from such a

. . .
behind the deal. Even as the fight went on, Garwha

person?’ asks Gopal, a tribal.
One court order (No.51/61 of 1966), observes that became a separate district.
‘prima facie irregularities (were) noted’. These included
Much of what happened is lost in the mists of time
’opening of demand in the name of other non-adivasi
and the must of courtroom records. Obtaining a stay on
the manner of the administration’s execution of its orders,
persons even though the recorded adivasi tenants were
Pathak got the matter held up at a civil court. 'And while
alive’. Also ‘settling (of) government lands in the garb of
the dispute was on,’ says an official at the circle office in
rent assessment for which the Circle Officer was not
the Ranka block of Garwha, ‘he sold the land to the
competent
Muslims. He was able to entice them with concessional
Over the years, some administrators have tried to help
prices.' These prices entailed no losses for Pathak. He still
the vic tim s. They include people like K. Suresh Singh who
gained a far greater sum of money than he had originally
has a legendary status among Palamau's poor. Political
paid for the land. Pathak recalls his victory with relish: ‘I
activists, mainly those of the Chhatra Yuva Sangharsh
defeated Suresh Singh and the others,’ says he. The effect
Vahini (now mostly with the Janata Dal) joined the fray.
of his victory? It pitted the unsuspecting Muslims against
There were court battles fought and orders passed. The
the real owners of the land, the adivasis and harijans.
ruling cancelling the annexation of these plots (Misc. case
1 6 of 75-76 and No.4 of 76-77) came in the High Court on
Back at Jogikhura, a perturbed Ainul Haque explains
that his kin had no clue that they were buying into trouble.
30 October 1976.
They did not know the land was under dispute. ‘We were
thirty poor families living far from here. We knew
Jagnarainji was a big leader and believed he was trying to Where projects matter
help us. We sold all our earlier possessions to come here. and people don’t - 1
Where can we go now?’
Haque and his friends speak the truth, but theirs is a
dilemma not easily appreciated by the Kharwars and
harijans. We want our land back They should not have
come here,’ says Ram Naresh Ram, a harijan who has been LALMATIYA, Godda (Bihar): It seemed a good idea at the
led to believe that the Muslims acted deliberately. The time. A
super hi-tech public sector venture worth nearly
tension is at hair-trigger level and could lead to a Rs 1,000 crores, to be located in one of the country’s
communal conflagration in Jogikhura. poorest regions. When the came up in the early ’80s,
idea
‘It was a Chanakya-like political masterstroke,’ says a
it promised to make Godda, with its 98 per cent rural
CSVS activist. He shakes his head in disbelief at the population, unique among India’s most backward
enormity of it. ’Jagnarainji first fixed the adivasis and districts.
harijans. He has made it difficult for them to regain the The Rajmahal Coal Mining Project, Lalmatiya (of
land except with bloodshed. He has fixed those elements Eastern Coalfields Ltd.), would create infrastructure in a
(of the latter-day Janata Dal) who led the fight against him region not linked by rail. It would set an example for other
by settling Muslims on the disputed plots. (Muslims here industries too timid to take such risks and notch up record
are part of the JD’s base.) And he is out of the fray himself, levels of production. Above all, it would bring jobs to
having disposed of the land at above its original value. Godda. High levels of unemployment have been a chronic
Lastly, he has handed an administration that turned problem in this district.
against him a time bomb of devastating potential.' There was also the mundane geological reality that
And so Jogikhura waits a third time, simmering, for you have to mine coal where you find it, though you can
the silence to end. use different methods. The importance of this experiment
went way beyond Godda (carved out as a separate district
in the Santhal Parganas division in 1983). It was crucial
for the country as a whole. Godda was to be a laboratory
where various elements of development strategy would be
fused together. If it worked, the miracle was worth
replicating in other depressed areas. In a country with
more job seekers than all the OECD nations put
—
together—without a tenth of their infrastructure it could
have been the start of something spectacular.
However, the technology used was not only relatively
advanced, it was also entirely foreign, ushered in by

Met-Chem, a Canada-based multinational (linked to U.S.
Steel).
Met-Chem has been collaborator-consultant to ECL in
creating this, Asia’s largest single-pit, opencast coal mine.
The Rajmahal venture aimed to produce 10.5 million
tonnes annually by the end of 1995.
The project came into being with an agreement
between Coal India Limited (CIL) and the Canadian
Commercial Corporation (CCL). Under it, the CCL
extended a loan of $ 166 million (Canadian) for the scheme.
And the Canadian International Development Agency
made a grant of $4 million for training.
— —
The potential for jobs a maximum of 2,44 1 was not
high to begin with. Of these, 700 were already held by
employees of the old Lalmatiya Collieries. They had worked
in what were underground-incline mines before the World
Bank got into the act with a pilot project creating an
opencast mine around 1981.
Besides, locals lacked the skills to handle tasks in a
hi-tech setting. So the ECL had to bring in around 400
trained personnel from elsewhere to fill in that gap. This scavenger moving through the waste dumps of the Rajmahal project Less
A coal ,
means that since the CIL and the CCL signed their than forty* five years from now Godda will have a lot ofpeople with no agriculture
,
contract in 1989, only some 1 ,300 new jobs have come up. —
to fall back on and no jobs in Rajmahal*
These, at an average cost of roughly Rs.65 lakhs per job!

off. It has rim into serious hurdles on environmental
If the proposed Hurra-C mine in this district comes off,
issues. could also face problems already troubling
It
together with the Rajmahal project, it would mean the
Rajmahal where the project has affected as many as
creation of employment for around 1 ,800 persons at a cost
eighteen villages. With twelve of these within the mine
of around Rs. 1 crore per job.
boundary, thousands of people are to be displaced.
‘If the aim was to create work,’ says political activist
Ironically, several among those to be uprooted are
S.P.Tiwari, ’then the potential was there. Imagine how
employees of the Rajmahal project themselves. They
many people you can employ if you use that sort of money —
properly. We could have created jobs that could be
—
exchanged without too much of a choice land for jobs.
Those surrendering two acres to the project found work in
sustained.’
the Rajmahal opencast mine. But the total life of the
Top ECL officials say that even Hurra-C may not take
project is forty-eight years.
In other words, less than forty-five years from now,

more physical problems and strains. The rate of
Godda will have a lot of people with no agriculture to fall
absenteeism, according to official sources, is almost 30
back on and no jobs in Rajmahal. Since the district is
per cent and can go higher than that in certain periods.
something of a national backwater, all this goes largely
But here, ‘each machine hour is more important than
unnoticed in the mainstream press. It causes much
manpower, so the work goes on'.
concern in Godda and Bihar, though.
R. C. Sharma joined the project only in late 1990,
It deserves wider concern. Rajmahal, as one of its own
inheriting a ten-year overlay of problems he did not create.
officers points out, is a classic example of ‘development
Still, he stoutly defends the Rajmahal adventure. The
strategy’ gone berserk, hurting those it meant to help. That
problems, however, continue to fester. And about the only
the mine is very far from its projected annual output of
thing everyone here agrees on is that these are not the
10.5 million tonnes is the least of its proble ms
problems of an individual or two, but of an entire
.
Rajmahal began as a captive project for the Kahlgaon

'development' process.
and Farakka super thermal power stations of the National
Thermal Power Corporation. These, the planners thought,
would need 13.5 million tonnes of coal annually by 1997.
But with both way behind their own schedules, the idea
has misfired. Rajmahal has piled up lakhs of tonnes of coal
it cannot sell. This raises the danger of a major, almost
inevitable fire, say top officials here.

The Rajmahal chief general manager, R. C. Sharma,
declines to reveal the per tonne cost of production of coal
here. That, it seems, is a confidential matter. But senior
sources within the management say it is around Rs.450
per tonne and the sale price could be as low as Rs.260 per
tonne. I am unable to independently confirm this. What is
clear is that the sale price is much lower than the
production cost per tonne.
A second paradox comes with the Rajmahal worker.
—
He is most productive in terms of output and yet, has the
highest rate of absenteeism. Rajmahal produces an
average of around 1 1 ,000 tonnes a day. That’s many times
more than most other ECL mines manage.
The workers handle machines of much heavier
capacities. Operators work eight hours a day without the
slightest break. And, says a senior official, there are also
concentrate those sort of functions in the same hands

Where projects matter anywhere, you are asking for trouble.’
but people don’t - 2

All the machinery of the project is imported via —
Met-Chem. The machinery cost Rs.474 crores. An
inventory of ‘spares and floating spares’ notched up a
further Rs.66 crores in twenty-four months. In short, of a
total of Rs.966 crores, Rs.645 crores went to or through a
LALMATIYA, Godda (Bihar): Not everybody is doing too company that was at once consultant, procurer and
badly at the ECL’s Rajmahal coal mining project. The provider.
Canadian multinational Met-Chem, for one, has done well There’s more. Sceptics point out that each time
for itself. anything goes wrong with the machinery, the project has
The project director, J.C. Menard, says, ‘Met-Chem to import spares, often at a cost of several lakhs of rupees
has not lost. We are here as a company doing business, for a single part. Since this also takes time, big machines
and have been in India since 1975. Our share of the project can months together.
lie idle for
is interesting. We have signed a contract and we’ll deliver An internal document I have obtained shows that as
on that.’ much as Rs. 100 crores worth of machinery can be out of
Menard is right, but perhaps modest, in saying that action at a given moment. In just the week covered by the
Met-Chem has not lost. Its share is certainly more than document, equipment lying damaged or ‘under
interesting. A document I have obtained shows that rehabilitation’ was worth Rs.84 crores. And, one official
Met-Chem has charged a consultancy fee of Rs. 105 crores told me ‘That wasn’t a particularly bad week. Incidentally,
,
’
in a project worth Rs.966 crore. That’s an astronomical the amount spent on welfare last year was about Rs. 1
figure and one without a precedent in any comparable lakhs.
deal. With the way off its
project targets, Met-Chem is in
The 989 deal struck by the public sector Coal India
1 danger of being fined US $.12.5 million under the terms
Limited (CIL) with the Canadian Commercial Corporation of the agreement. That does not deter the Canadian
saw Met-Chem gain a unique status at Rajmahal. It took company. It is eager to continue, and sees that fine as no
charge of many functions. For instance, ’procurement of big problem. It looks forward to a renewal of its contract
equipment, technology transfer, and technical consul- less than a hundred days from now. Clearly, as Menard
tancy in mining’. Also, min e planning, maintenance and
‘
says, ‘Met-Chem has not lost.’
truck despatch systems’. The Rajmahal chief general manager, R.C. Sharma,
In effect, Met-Chem became purchaser, partner, A noble one. A
believes there is another side to the story.
middleman and consultant. That, for the biggest single-pit technology where no worker actually touches the coal with
mining project in Asia. It proved a lethal combination. ‘It his hands. An advanced idea in a backward area. A
is not true just here,’ says a senior officer. ’If you production capability no one else can match.
But questions about its value to the people of Godda
268 Everybody Loues a Good Drought Crime & No Punishment 269
remain. hours away by bus. Job opportunities remain limited,

Its technology, seen as the project’s strong point, has though a ‘coal mafia’ has developed. Prostitution has come
not helped the district. The giant electric rope shovels and in a significant way to villages where it was never a major
the huge 170 -tonne dumpers brought in by Met-Chem phenomenon. Antisocial elements have grown powerful.
have two implications. First, fewer jobs. And second, Union leaders also allege that officials ‘sold* some of the
Rajmahal has not created around itself the kind of busy jobs at the plant. A few have got jobs but many more have
ancillary networks that, say, Bokaro has. —
lost their homes or are about to do so ironically, to enable
As one management official puts it: ‘There s no point the others to get those jobs! No major infrastructure of any
in anyone opening a service shop or a garage here, because consequence has come to Godda. The ECL is making
they can’t so much as make a ball-bearing for these losses, though officers get trips to Canada.
machines. So the local spin-offs are nil.' As an officer within the Rajmahal management asks:
There have been other spin-offs, though. Dozens of ‘How has India benefited? Or the public sector? Or the
officers, some of them senior executives, have been able people of Godda?'
to visit Canada for ’training’. This, on a programme meant The only visible beneficiary is the multinational
for operators and supervisors. company which, by its own admission, is doing okay. ‘If a
Both R.C.Sharma and Menard assure me that the foreign MNC can make money out of one of our poorest
trips to Canada were, by the rules, only for executives. districts, what about the people who live there?’ he asks.
However, Met-Chem's own publicity journal states ‘Why can’t they get a chance to do the same?’
otherwise. It says that ‘a separate contract was awarded A seasoned political activist, S.P. Tiwari, has worked
for the training of supervisors and operators in Canadian in Godda for many years. ‘Rajmahal,’ he says, ‘is a classic
open-pit mines and at the mine site’. example of development strategy that works in terms of
The fact that no operators and very few, if any, projects, not people,’ If the road to hell is paved with good
supervisors have gone to Canada has caused much intentions, Godda seems pretty much to belong to that
heartburn among those categories of workers. Yet, one of highway.
those who made the trip was the officer in charge of
approving Met-Chem’s purchases.
Quite a few workers who got here by trading land for Postscript
jobs are angry. Their villages are being displaced and they
don’t trust the management's promises of rehabilitation. Questions came up in Parliament soon after publication of the
The project is way behind its schedules and countless story. Details of the 'consultancy charges’ outraged some MPs.
other problems plague it daily. Met-Chem's contract was not renewed and it has left Godda. The
So who has gained from Godda's brave new world ECL has put the best possible face on the issue, under the
experiment? circumstances. It says the MNC has left as its work ‘was over’.
The district remains as backward as ever. Godda still It has no comment on why Met-Chem looked forward so eagerly
has no rail link and the nearest railhead is Jasidih, two to a renewal of contract if its work 'was over'. While was there,
I
270 Everybody Loves a Good Drought Despots,
Met-Chem had a board in the main hall counting down the
number of days Vo the expiry of the old contract. The MNC was Distillers
pretty sure it would stay. At the end of the episode, though,
Menard Met-Chem has not Godda has.
is still right. lost.
Poets
&
Artists
Characters of the countryside

H e knew an awful
lot about moneylenders. He also knew how
many exactly there were in town. How many held licences,

how many worked freelance. But, he insisted, he was not
one himself. Heaven forbid. So how did he know so much about
them? Oh, that was easy. You keep your eyes and ears open.
You observe, you learn.
We were in Kapil Narain Tiwari’s house in Khariar. Tiwari is
a leading political figure in Kalahandi. Few have fought so fiercely
as he has for the rights of people there. We had wanted to talk
to a town-based moneylender with rural clients. He had invited
one to meet us. And the man had agreed to speak. Such is the
respect Tiwari commands. All of us maintained the polite facade
that our guest was not really a moneylender. He just knew a lot
about them. He kept his eyes and ears open and observed and
learnt.
In aselfish sense, rural India is ajournalist's paradise. You’d
find it hard to match its rich array of characters, for one thing.
‘Characters’ here does not mean just individuals, but also
groups. There were people like the Manatu Mhowar (Man-eater
of Manatu) That tyrannical landlord of Palamau
.
began a meeting
by politely suggesting that throw in a lot of abuses about him in
I
my report. ‘Otherwise/he said, hope you knowthat your editors

‘I
won’t publish your story.’

Then illicit distillers of Ramnad who taught
there were the
us how to make arrack. Or the writer in the same district who felt
that 3 a.m. was the ideal time for an interview. There were the
two male poets of Pudukkottai who wrote songs of women’s
liberation. The hordes of small farmers who make the cockfight
of Malkangirisuch a unique social event. The remote village in
Godda where children were trained to sing a song of welcome in
English for a visiting minister who could hardly speak the
language himself.
Though they are very strong individuals, all the characters
here represent more than just themselves. They mirror trends,
groups, even movements. Writer Ponnusamy is very
individualistic indeed. Stili,few can catch the flavour of Ramnad

as he does in his work. Interviewing people like him was fun. But The ex-man -eater of Manatu
it was, above all, an education. Fire-brigade journalism—the
flit-in, flit-out school— really misses out on this. It’s re-stating the
obvious, but: learning something about the area you are going
to, or of the people you want to speak to helps catch that richness.
Patience and the right questions help too. DALTONGANJ, Palamau (Bihar): ‘The public promoted my
After that, as our moneylender so correctly put it: You keep cheetah to a lion —thanks to journalists like you—that's
your eyes and ears open. You observe, you learn. why I got such a bad image. You are interviewing me now.
But I hope you know that your editors won’t publish your
story unless contains a few gaalts (abuses) against me?’
it
Meet Jagdhishwar Jeet Singh, the Manatu Mhowar

(Man-eater of Manatu). Once the most feared of the
—
tyrannical landlords of Palamau and perhaps of all
Bihar. Also, the subject of documentaries, and of stories
by the BBC, among a host of others. A holder of the world
record for the number of bonded labour cases brought
against a single person (ninety- six at one point). And a
Jharkhand Party candidate who lost his deposit in the
1991 assembly polls.
The terror of the Manatu area of Palamau, the Mhowar
allowed no one outside his family to construct a pucca
house in his fiefdom for decades. He levied fines and taxes
on villagers and ran an empire of thousands of acres on
forced and bonded labour. His reputation fully —
—
earned was terrible. Villagers dreaded the man who kept
a cheetah for a pet.
‘Look, some people raise goatsand some people
gardens. Now goats devastate gardens, don’t they? But I
like to raise both gardens and goats, all creatures. I only
kept a simple cheetah (it died in 1982). People say I threw
peasants to it. If so, could I have let it run about free in
my house, endangering my own family? But you
journalists need a sensation. So my cheetah became a lion,
and I a man-eater.
276 Everybody Loves a Good Drought Despots, Distillers, Poets & Artists 277
'You charge me with bonded labour, but we live in an borrowed Rs.5. Of people subjected to unspeakable terror.
era where even a man’s son feels no bond to him. So how And of cases falling flat in court due to witnesses being too
can anyone remain bonded? afraid to appear against the mighty one of Manatu.
‘Are you taking my photograph? Get the angle right. I But the Mhowar's downfall began in the late ’70s and
have to look sufficiently wicked. You’ll probably have to accelerated in the ’80s. It came about more from the loss
touch it up, you know. The last journal did of forced and bonded labour than perhaps any other single
—
that apparently I didn’t look evil enough for their story. factor. Anti-Mhowar officials and a vigorous CPI agitation
‘And let me stand for a photograph in front of my car.’ in the ’70s made it very him to retain bonded
difficult for
The car is an ancient, decrepit- looking Dodge that has not labour. By the late '80s, Naxalite groups had become active
seen the road in a long time. ‘You see my wealth and in his area. And today, squads of the extremist Maoist
splendour? Like car, like owner. Both are in the same Communist Centre (MCC) stalk his domain, forcing him
condition.’ to spend more time in Daltonganj than in Manatu.
Howdoes the actual record fit with such seeming The actions of a block development officer,
simplicity?With the charm and the easy humour? Badly. Bumbahadur Singh, put Jagdishwar Jeet Singh under a
Across the villages of Manatu lies a trail of bloodshed and great deal of pressure in the '70s. The landlord found
pain. A trail of families bonded ages ago for having himself bogged down. All of a sudden, he was fighting a
whole lot of cases brought against him. The charges
ranged from large-scale timber smuggling to atrocities
against villagers. Bumbahadur Singh also curbed the
landlord's habit of trampling on the common property
rights of the villagers.
‘Bumbahadur? Only the first bit of his name goes well.
He was anything but bahadur (brave). I defeated all his
cases. They were motivated by caste and personal
jealousy,’ claims the landlord. (The officer was a Rajput
and the Mhowar is a Bhumihar.) Nevertheless, those
battles seriously eroded his position.
Why join the Jharkhand Part}?? ‘Because they are for
the poor, the oppressed and the tribals. I too am
oppressed. I'm an old man (now about seventy) who has
lost so much land and who just wants to live in peace. The
Jharkhand Party wants a separate state and development
for the adivasis. And I am for that.’
But he is hardly an adivasi? ‘Don’t confuse the
The Manatu Mhowar in front of his ancient Dodge car *You see my wealth and
.
splendour he mocked. 'Like car like owner. Both are in the same condition /
t
Jharkhand Party with other Jharkhandi movements like
the JMM. The Jharkhand Party sees all of us living in this with
The local police, charge villagers there, are either
region as adivasis.’
the landlord or seeking bribes from them. But as I am
‘He joined the Jharkhand Party,' says a leading
leaving Palamau, an angry deputy commissioner and the
businessman of Daltonganj I meet after the interview,
superintendent of police seem to have called the Mhowar’s
‘because he wanted to save his land. For that, he needed
bl uff The poor families retain control of the land.
.
some political clout. The Congress was not strong enough ‘Palamau,* says a local political activist, ‘will prosper
to help him after the '70s. And he had alienated the Janata
when the curse of people like these is removed. We have
Party and its successors.'
to wipe out these feudal vestiges in land and agriculture.
Jagdishwar Jeet Singh has still managed to hold on,
Else, there is no future for us.’ All the evidence suggests
by one estimate, to about 1 ,200 acres of land. That is over
he is right.
thirty times the legal limit. And the filthy, decaying house
‘So you are leaving?' asked Jagdishwar Jeet Singh at
where I interviewed him in Daltonganj sits atop property
the end of our interview in the morning. The man-eater
worth Rs.30 lakhs. Yet, he has gone to seed. As a peep at
who could be on his way to becoming the toothless tabby
the backyard disclosed, the ‘man-eater of Manatu’ is
of Palamau, waved goodbye: ‘Don’t forget to give me those
—
selling buffalo milk he has a sizeable fleet of bovines
gaalis in your article. Your story won't be complete unless
—
there to earn an extra buck. What explains the
you throw in some abuses against me. And I can t do
combination of wealth and decay?
anything. What’s the point of taking on journalists? If I
‘He has money,’ says the businessman, ‘but even he
take on one, the rest will start giving me gaalis.'
knows his reign is over. This sort of landlord simply cannot
make the transition to the new situation. Some feudal
tyrants have made that transition cleverly. But this sort
doesn’t want to pay anyone anything. They have been used
to terror, forced labour and unpaid services all their lives.
When these are curbed, they become pathetic. Only a part
of the land with him is cultivated. If he wants to resort to
forced labour, he has to contend with the Socialists, the
Communists and the MCC. So he just decays. His fangs
have been drawn.'
Once a while, he still does try enforcing his writ. The
—
Chhotanagpur Samaj Vikas Sansthan a local NGO had —
successfully overseen the distribution of some of his
surplus land last year. This had gone to eighty poor
families in the Pathan block who officially received pattas
to that land. Even as I was interviewing the Mhowar, I am
later to learn, a group close to him attacked those families.
It was.
Hey, hey, hey, it’s a beautiful day! They were hey it’s a beautiful day!
singing: 'Hey, hey,
Say, say, say, happy welcome to you
A strange but entertaining medley of different popular
songs, perhaps woven together by some mischievous
priest with a sense of humour. But since these lines were
GODDA (Bihar): There was some cause for jubilation. The sung in English, they didn’t make the impact they
minister was not going to be more than two and a ha lf deserved to, here in Godda, Bihar.
hours late. Pretty decent punctuality by ministerial ‘Mantriji ka samay bahut kam hat,’ intoned the BDO
standards. Not that anybody really minded. I certainly
when the girls had packed it in and the boys were just
didn't. The two tribal cultural troupes (one Santhal, one
about to begin. The BDO wiped the sweat off his
Paharia) were holding us spellbound. It made even the
oppressive heat a bit more tolerable.
—
forehead far from being a beautiful day, it was
insufferably sultry. ‘Samay bahut kam hai,’ he said again
The sheer beauty of their skills made some of us wish twice, as if afraid of forgetting the line if he didn't repeat
the minister, Birendra Singh, wouldn’t show up at all.
it often enough.
Once he did, they would be restricted to a song each and Soon, he parroted his incantation over the mike and
goodbye. The over- enthusiastic vigour of the drummers
the boys finished their last two verses at a gallop. The
had, possibly, something to do with the refreshments plied
cultural troupes stepped forward.
to them by a couple of stage managers a while before. At
had problems now.
The political-level floor organisers
least, the stage managers referred to them as
The over-excited state of the drummers had deepened.
refreshments. It seemed the polite thing to do. In any case,
Perhaps they had had more refreshments. The drummers
the troupes were magnificent.
of one troupe mischievously rattled off practice beats as
Scores of people running around and behind a retinue
the singers of the second were belting out their welcome.
of cars signalled the arrival of the minister. ‘Mantri aa
However, with some deadly glares, a few whispered
gaya (the minister has come), went the cry. People swiftly warnings and some deft work on the sidelines, the
gathered under a shamiana to listen to the minister.
situation (as the BDO was later to observe) was brought
'Mantriji ka samay bahut kam hai!’ (the minister has very
under control.
little time) said the block development officer at least
thrice Quickly, the cultural component of the day’s
over the mike. This was a message to the cultural troupes
proceedings was brought to a close. All of it, by my count,
that the minister's performance required more time than
within twenty-five minutes, perhaps even less. It had to
their own.
be so. Because, as the BDO reminded us, ‘Samay bahut
After the ritual garlanding, a group of young girls from
kam hai,’ and there was so much work to be done.
the local mission school began singing in angelic voices.
After the BDO concluded his signature tune, MLA
In parts, their song sounded vaguely familiar. When they
Hernial Murmu took the floor to welcome the minister.
hit the chorus for the second time, I sat up. It couldn't be.
‘This isn’t possible!’ I exclaimed to my neighbour as Hemlal
mounted the podium. ‘The man’s a JMM MLA and there’s been in that trade once. But that was long ago. Now they
an all-Jharkhand bandh and blockade on. He’s supposed were honest, upright citizens. They had clung on to the
to be blockading Birendra Singh, not welcoming birr. JMM equipment for purely sentimental reasons. For old times’
activists are being arrested not ten kilometres from here. sake, as it were. But policemen, especially DSPs, are
How can this be?’ notoriously unsentimental. He was not willing to see
This is Bihar,’ my neighbour said proudly. ’Besides, reason.
this is about what the blockade amounts to, anyway,’
There was no electricity during most of this period,
Perhaps, chipped in another member of the audience, we just like during any other period in Godda. So I stumbled
ought to read more into it. Hernial had defected once, from on the raid in darkness. The place was alive with rats and
the CPI to the JMM when he thought (correctly) that would
police. The first squeaked at me derisively as I mounted
help him win an election. Could it be that he was poised
the stairs. The latter strode towards me decisively as I
to move on again, this time to the Janata Dal?
approached my room.
We pondered the matter while waiting for Hemlal to The DSP wanted to know: if I was (as I claimed) a
begin. That took some time. His first five minutes were
journalist and had been (as I claimed) in the district so
spent in battling, rather ineffectively, with a defective
mike. A replacement mike was found and Hemlal effusively
—
many days then why had I not registered myself with ‘the
authorities’? Had I, for instance, notified his boss, the
welcomed manfrt mahoday. That took some time,- too. superintendent of police, of my arrival in Godda? Since I
Almost as much time as all the cultural troupes and wasn't a convicted criminal on parole, nor a habitual
performers together. When he finished, another official offender on the police list, I didn't know the answer to that
had his say briefly and then it was Birendra Singh’s turn. one.
Now, as we discovered, bahut samay tha. When I left Mercifully, for once, had my
accreditation card on
I
about half an hour later, he was still speaking. I withdrew, me. The police left with my neighbours whom I haven’t
disappointed by Godda’s version of the all-Jharkhand
blockade.
—
seen since the enterprising lodge keeper immediately
re-letting rooms they had booked for the next several days.
A week later, I was treated to some blockading myself. He seemed to sense, shrewdly, that the police would be
The lodge where I had parked my stuff was raided by the offering them alternative accommodation for a while.
police at night. An energetic, youthful and highly
I was tempted to go down to the station myself and
suspicious deputy superintendent of police was in charge. have a look. But it was late, a four-day slog in the hills had
He had just taken into custody my neighbours, a couple exhausted me, and better sense finally prevailed. I had
of ‘suspicious characters’ against whom the police had new neighbours, but I still occupied the same room and
apparently received some tip-off. not a cell.
The suspicions about their character were not without Hey, hey, hey, it's a beautiful day.
basis. They were found with equipment that possibly had
some artistic uses, but is associated in the minds of the
police with counterfeiters. They even confessed to having
pacify them. ‘Why did you have to run like that when you
A day at the distillers saw us?’ I ask. ‘Why did you have to wear khaki trousers?’
they want to know. Swamy and Kannan, our two distillers,
are cheerful, courteous and charming and completely —
outrageous liars, especially on the economics of their
trade. They make veiy little out of it, they plead.
MUDUKULLUTHUR, Ramnad (Tamil Nadu): Melt down But if this line of work is so unrewarding, why choose
eight kilos of palm jaggery in a big pot. Throw in four kilos it? Their spiel for the next half-hour makes arrack
of kadukai (a diy fruit), a dollop of nutmeg and a dash of distillation seem a virtue. They are only doing this, Swamy
poppy seed. Add the ayurvedic preparation, explains, to keep the wolf from the door.
Carburaharasai, a finger of ginger and alum. Top off with In that, they seem to have succeeded admirably. They
banana skin and date fruit. Bury for a week, recover, boil admit to producing up to fifty litres a day (which makes
and distil. And what have you got? them small- medium operators). This means they can
Probably a conviction and a Rs.500 fine. Arrack is generate a turnover of around Rs. 1 ,600 daily. And Kannan
illegal in Tamil Nadu. If you’ve added optionals like battery
seems to be wearing an expensive make of sunglasses.
cells, chillies and cow dung to the recipe to speed up the
They never, they explain piously, use filthy stuff like
fermentation process, your puni sh me nt could be stiffer. battery cells, though they know others who do their —
His worship might wag a finger at you while raising the rivals in the same woods.
fine a few hundred.
‘We also drink what we make here,’ says Swamy nobly,
This is Tamil Nadu’s most widely patronised illegal reminding me of similar signs about food in some Bombay
industry. But who are its ‘grassroots’ operatives? restaurants.
Finding an answer to that clearly involves talking to 1 say I thought they had the police well in hand: then
the distillers of illicit arrack themselves. Here, this means why the record-shattering sprint when they first saw me?
looking for them in the woods of Mudukulluthur in ‘Normally, there is some cooperation,* agrees Swamy coyly.
Ramnad district. After hours of what seems aimless ‘But this new DSP Kannappan who has come here is a
wandering, we find them. He won’t accept bribes.’ While there
terrible fellow, soar.
The meeting doesn't go quite as intended. At the sight isgrudging respect for this strange policeman, they abuse
of us, the distillers make a strong assault on existing land a sub-inspector who ‘took bribes and then beat us on
speed records, leaving all their equipment behind. This, it orders’.
later turns out, is because I am wearing khaki
Both and the look-out they've posted seem
distillers
—
trousers symbolising the police. Their flight does allow
ever-ready to bolt deeper into the woods if necessary. But
for calm, unhurried photographing of their abandoned
we meet only their wholesaler and a client so tanked up
apparatus, but the pictures are clearly not going to speak he can’t tell whether he’s coming or going. The client stops
a thousand words. We still need to talk to them. only a few minutes to convince us his father was a
An hour and a couple of kilometres later, we find and zamindar. Swamy and Kannan speak eloquently of their
do not enjoy a great deal of political protection. The big

distillers do.
What about the ethical dimensions of their trade? For
them, there are none. ‘What other employment is open to
us?' asks Swamy.
Arrack, both insist, is a necessity for those who do
hard labour. But don’t women labour more without getting
into the same habits? Oh, well, women, after all, are
women. There’s not much that can be done about that, is
there? They now shift to explaining their distribution and
sale system.
All this while, the mix is boiling in a big lead pot. On
— —
top of this sits a smaller empty mud pot with a hole in
the bottom and a tube jutting out of its side. The inside
end of the tube rests on a suspended plate. Atop the mud
container is an even smaller copper pot with plain water.
As the mix in the lead pot boils, the substance begins
to vaporise and rise to the top of the mud pot. There it hits
the copper bottom of the water container, returns, and gets
distilled out through the tube into a waiting bottle. The
first three bottles— —
they will get ten in all contain a highly
concentrated substance. When they mix these ten bottles
with four bottles of water, they will get roughly ten litres
of arrack.
Ramnad, among India’s most backward districts, has
a big list of convictions of arrack distillers. Nearly one eveiy
two hours, according to official data here. That rivals the
The arrack distillation process at a glance. Arrack is Tamil Nadu*s most widely
patronised illegal industry , The distillers Swamy and Kannan* generously allowed
r
record of Pudukkottai next door. Fine collections are also
me to take these pictures They were a bit shy* though, of appearing in the
.
substantial: over ten lakh rupees in the past 150 days.
photographs themselves.
The trade is huge and widespread. As in Pudukkottai,
own humble agri- labour origins. But they are clearly better it traps a big part of the earnings of male agricultural
off and now prey on other agricultural workers. workers addicted to arrack. Here too most women hate it
Yet, at another level, both sire small links in a chain as a destroyer of family income and peace.
that reaches to ministerial heights in this state. That is a In several villages along the coastline, many fishermen
chain of payoffs, bribes and demands totalling crores of also admit to drinking a lot of arrack. Sometimes, at a cost
rupees. But these two are, relatively, small- timers. They
—
of three-quarters of a day’s earnings daily in some
seasons. Arrack merchants allow credit to those they know Fowl play in Malkangiri
they have hooked.
Swamy and Kannan allow me to take photographs of
the distillation process but are shy of appearing in the
—
pictures themselves. I explain as I get up to leave for they
MALKANGIRI Dhanurjoy Hanthal is delighted he
—
have never imagined anything so foolish could exist that
can speak to
(Orissa):
me A poor peasant knowing both
in Telugu.
I am a teetotaller. Ah well, their philosophical looks seem
that language and his native Oriya, he has run into us at
to say as we part, it takes all sorts to make a world.
the most popular social event in Malkangiri: the kukuda
ladoi, or cockfight.
In a region where people can labour fourteen hours to
earn less than ten rupees, the cockfight is an event where
thousands of rupees can change hands in minutes. Many
of the fighter cocks are brought to the battleground by little
peasant farmers who immediately face a barrage of bids
for their birds from agents and brokers. Some of the birds
sell for Rs.600 to Rs.800. The agents, who know a good
fighter when they see one, want to buy the bird off the
farmer and earn big money. They can do this by matching
it against the ‘appropriate’ opponent. Some agents
buy
more than one bird.
This means the agents can sometimes select both the
fighter and its rival and, to that extent, rig the outcome.
They can make money both ways: from the betting the figh t
attracts and its actual result. No agent, however, could
persuade Dhanurjoy on this day.
‘He is the champion,’ says Dhanurjoy proudly,
cradling a cantankerous looking white cock in his arms.
He will just destroy his opponent. Lay your money on him.'
Dhanurjoy is shouting to make himself heard. Samosa
vendors, makeshift tea stall owners, jalebi makers and
biscuit sellers have shown up at this odd venue a few
kilometres from Malkangiri town to hawk their stuff at the
top of their voices.
And then there are the birds. cries announce the fixing of a couple of bouts. Now the
We could hear them from nearly a kilometre away bets are on. ‘Das rupya rengda, bees rupya dabbla (ten on ’
across the plain. Piercing, hair-raising shrieks of the red, twenty on the white), and so it goes upwards. —
aggression hit the air as they worked themselves up into Among those accepting bets is a respectable -looking,
a rage before the fight. The venue is a sea of strange elderly gentleman of enormous dignity. Dhanurjoy tells me
colours. An arena crammed with battling broilers of he isthe headmaster of a school in the vicinity.
different hues, each bird tied, comically, by a thin string The ku.ku.da ladoi has been a Malkangiri tradition for
to little clump of grass.
a centuries. Gambling has always been a part of it, though
Villainous white cocks hurl abuse at rowdy red ones. many poor peasants enter for the love of the battle. But in
Huge black birds spit fowl expletives at their spotted the last few decades, commerce has crept in. Now, owners
challengers. Even from a distance, it sounds as if heated attach frighteningly sharp, narrow knives to the feet of the
debates have led to violence at an all-India poultry birds, to speed up the combat and ensure swift results.
convention. And still more men are coining, many with This cruel feature has transformed the traditional
blindfolded birds in their arms, walking single file down cockfight. Earlier, a single bout could last an hour or more,
different pathways from the hills. Farmers themselves, with the contestants rambling all over the area. With the
they move respectfully in lines along the ridges dividing knives, it’s all over in minutes. Dhanurjoy shows us five
the plots of cultivated land to avoid trampling on crops. pairs of knives, explaining how his champion will change
Some have come all the way from neighbouring Andhra his footwear for each fight, depending on the capability
Pradesh. We are now standing in the middle of the bowl of and size of his rival. Clearly, the bird has a long day ahead.
land they are converging on. From here, the lines of people The ring is about twenty-five feet in diameter,
from the hills make a spectacular sight. creatively constructed from twigs and bamboo sticks. The
Already in Malkangiri we have seen trainers put birds organiser gets an entry fee from each bird owner. Also, a
through their paces very early in the morning. It’s a bit percentage on everything, from the bets to a liberal share
disconcerting to step into a street in that tiny town and of the blows during any fist-fight. This one allows me the
watch a cock being tossed over a wall or other barrier. privilege of taking photographs from within the ring.
'They have to learn to leap with force and anger,’ explained First come the flyweights. The heavier birds are
Anand, one of the trainers. There was also Krishna Reddy, reserved for later when both crowd and betting are at their
who had turned up just for the coming big fight, his highest. The opening bout closes almost immediately. A
blindfolded bird screeching in rage at unseen enemies white cock, pitted against a red, bolts the ring and shoots
around 5 a.m. in the morning. From them, we had learnt off across the countryside. Its owner moans in despair. In
of the main event and its venue. When we left, the birds kukuda ladot the defeated bird’s master loses not only his
in training were still learning to leap with force and anger. —
money, out also the bird which ends up as the rival
At the venue, the event takes its time getting started. owner’s dinner.
The matching of the birds and the leech-like persistence Once the flyweights are out of the way, the middles
of the agents and brokers delays proceedings. Finally, loud take possession of the ring for a while. The fights begin
292 Everybody Loves a Good Drought Despots , Distillers, Poets & Artists 293
with the owners of the two birds holding the contestants on the neck. An impartial referee would stop the bout at
in their arms and swinging them thrice towards each this point. But the man who could have been that is busy
other, beak- to -beak. This, apparently, is a way of getting counting the gate receipts, which are mo unting
the fighters acquainted with their antagonists. A sort of satisfactorily. With the result that Dhanurjoy's champion
squaring-off, allowing each a quick opportunity of sizing goes woozily into:
up its combatant. After the third swing, they seemingly Round one: The birds move their ungainly feet with
begin a fourth, but this time fling the cocks at each other unsuspected speed, agility and power. But our champion
in mid-air. With that, the bout is on. is clearly off colour. The Red Menace comes in, firing on
Not always so, though. As we learn at the training all fronts, his deliberately sharpened beak and the knives
sessions, cocks are curious of temperament. One moment, on his feet traumatising Dhanurjoy’s Great White Hope.
their rage is terrible, completely focused on annihilating The champ takes at least four ugly nicks on the breast
—
the rival. The next, it is seemingly spent and then back and under the wings. The audience is hysterical. But the
again a minute later. We watched two birds outside the knives on the birds’ feet are coming loose, so the owners
tea stall in the morning. They were pecking at something enforce a temporary truce to retie them. This allows the
or the other peacefully, in the usual manner of their kind. contestants a minor respite before:
Suddenly, they would look up at each other and charge Round Two: Both birds shoot into the air, ripping away
into combat uttering hideous oaths. For a few moments relentlessly. Dhanurjoy's champion, still smarting from
there would be a flurry of feathers while we held our the early blow, is just a fraction of a second slower. It is a
breath. Then, equally suddenly, almost on an invisible, fatal fraction of a second. His rival rips upwards as he
inaudible signal, they would break off and go about lands, cutting into the neck. The Red Menace then closes
pecking for food peaceably. Next, without warning, but in for the kill. Two razor-sharp jerks draw bloody patches
perfectly synchronized, came blistering bird blasphemies on the white one’s breast.
as they charged one another yet again at tremendous At this point, the white cock turns philosophical.
speed. This leisurely war and peace scenario continued for Almost as if there was no such thing as a fight on, he strolls
nearly half an hour. off to a comer and sits down to meditate, oblivious to the
Here, at the event, they me allowed no such luxuries. jeers of an unsympathetic crowd, unmindful of his
This the real thing. Once the birds are thrown at each master’s admonishments. His min d seems occupied by
other, the masters circle around them as they fight, now higher matters, such as how to leave the ring alive.
encouraging, now abusing, hurling them back into the fray While he takes the count, Dhanurjoy addresses his
ifthey break off for too long. charge in language that would not be tolerated in the state
Dhanurjoy's big moment comes after a few more bouts legislature. I see him again later, the limp champion in his
when his white champion is matched against a ruffianly hand. It is hard to say who looks more crestfallen, farmer
red rooster. Even as the owners swing the two birds beak or fowl. Most of the subsequent winners too are reds and
to beak, allowing them to size each other up, the red cock blacks. It is a bad day for White supremacists.
catches Dhanurjoy's bird a deadly if unscrupulous blow Krishna Reddy, whose red rooster is among the
294 Everybody Loves a Good Drought Despots, Distillers, Poets & Artfsfs 295
knives dangling unused by his side, as he trudges towards

his village, beaten but not broken. There shall, after all,
be another day, another bird, another bout, another bet.
The kukuda ladoi, or cockfight is the most popular social event in Malkangiri<. In a
region where people can labour fourteen hours to earn less than ten rupees, this is
an occasion where thousands of rupees can change hands in minutes .
victors, tells is a cockfight almost every day of the

us there
week in part of the district. Some of these draw even
some
larger crowds, he says. The season begins around October
and ends in February.
The light is now too poor for photography, and my
flash is behaving badly. As we leave, the bets have
multiplied by several times, the crowd and noise become
unbelievable. Many of those we have spoken to, such as
Madhaba Gonda, Vasant Pinki or Krishna Reddy, have
been to cockfights for over a decade.
We pass Dhanurjoy on the way out. his hands empty,
drive, the and impact of this song is

popularity
Minstrels with a mission immeasurable. But it has gone beyond Pudukkottai too.
The song has been translated into Hindi, Telugu, Kannada
and Malayalam.
Jayachandar’s songs also are now sung in more than
one language. The fame of both poets has gone beyond this
PUDUKKOTTAI (Tamil Nadu): One is a schoolteacher. The obscure, backward district. Jayachandar revels in the
other, a Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) officer. Both are
curious pseudonym Vettri Nilavan, or ‘Moon of Victory’.
thirty-seven years old and male. Sounds very The last time I met him, he had just returned from
commonplace. Yet Jayachandar and Muthu Bhaskaran
Coimbatore where he had gone to record a pro -literacy
are hardly that. They must rank as an unusual pair in any
song aimed at that city's textile workers. And there are
setting, rural or urban.
other themes. ‘Human Once Again' is the title of one of his
Each is an independent songwriter. Both write highly anti-liquor songs. Its protagonist is a reformed alcoholic.
popular songs in Tamil. They often aim their lyrics The pro-literacy songs go beyond advocacy of the
—
specifically at women urging them to stand up for their
ABCs: ‘Things won’t change simply because we say
rights, to rebel. The songs call on women to realise their
so . we have to fight in many ways
. .
and one of these . . .
potential and to prove they are every inch as capable as goes one of his numbers. ‘The mighty hands,
is learning’,
men, if not more so. Of course, they have written songs on
that plough the lands, and pluck the weeds, now take the
other subjects, but what's striking is the way women in
lamp, the light of knowledge and drive away the
. . .
Tamil Nadu’s least urbanised district have responded to .change your life ... if we learn
darkness of illiteracy . . .
their songs.
to read and write we can't be cheated any more.’
And it’s strong stuff: ‘Never get entangled in the words ‘So what if a female child is born’, goes another
of those who say “it’s impossible for women",’ go the lines
popular Jayachandar song, written after the poet was
of one Jayachandar song. ‘Dispel these illusions throw. . .
moved by reports of female infanticide. ‘Keep aside, and
fire on the atrocities they threaten you with. Like a bird
take your mourning with you. Is there any world without
with wings clipped, society has enslaved you within the
women? Give me an answer.’
home. Now come out like a gathering storm.’ It’s much more powerful in Tamil, of course. Between
Muthu Bhaskaran’s song, ‘O sister, come learn them, the two have written over fifty songs. These are on
cycling, move with the wheel of time has proved a
’
literacy, against arrack, for advancing women’s rights, and

. . .
classic. Almost every female neo-literate, neo-cyclist here

promoting science and scientific thinking. And people Eire
has sung or knows of this song. A sample line: ‘The men listening. In large numbers.
are riding the cycles with the women on the carriers?
Muthu Bhaskaran, an M.A. in Tamil from Madurai
That’s an old story, sister. Let’s rewrite it now with you in Government Model Higher
University, is a teacher at the
the driver’s seat.’ In a district where women have taken to
Secondary School. Jayachandar, a B.Sc. in mathematics
cycling in astonishing numbers as part of the literacy
and from a family of agriculturists, works in the LIC. What.
was the turning point in their thinking? Both speak of their

participation in the 'East Coast Jatha'. That was a march Valia the honest chowkidar
from Pondicherry to Kanyakumari in the late '80s. ‘It was
my exposure to a scientific literacy campaign,’ says
first
Jayachandar.
Both also gained from their contact with the Tamil
Nadu Science Forum and the Progressive Writers PETLAWAD, Jhabua (M.P.): ’My policy is very clear. I am
Association. And both were deeply moved by their work in not paid to be a hero. For what we are paid, we need do
and interaction with the literacy movement, Arivoli nothing. Yet, I do try and stop group clashes in the village.
I try my best. Should we stick our necks out to do what
Iyakkam, in their own district. ‘I noticed changes within
me and as society changed me, I thought I would try to the police are paid for but fail to do? Raat kajhagda, subah
change society,’ says Muthu Bhaskaran. Before his Arivoli jayenge (a clash in the night, we look at it in the morning).
experience, he says, ‘I thought of women in the old way, Then we act.'
that they can’t really come out and do things. But in Valia Deva Katara is the lowest functionary, the last
Arivoli, I have learned very different. Given the chance, link in the mighty apparatus of state. He is paid by the
there is nothing they cannot achieve.’ revenue department, but reports to the police. His
How do men react to songs asking women to call their immediate boss is the patwari. Valia is a village chowkidar
bluff? ‘Why men?’ laughs Muthu Bhaskaran, ‘some or kotwar (spelt kotwal in some states). Officials describe
mocking from them was inevitable, but a few of the older him as the smallest unit of the police in India. But that is
women too were scand alised. However, girls in the 15-25 not a description he relishes. He prefers to distance
age group picked up the songs very quickly.’ himself from the police. And Valia is a modest soul. This
Has either ever had reason to look back and find that Bhil tribal’s record in stopping intra-village clashes is
events have overtaken one of his songs? Yes,’ says Muthu really quite good. That, too, in a high crime region where
Bhaskaran. 1 felt that way after watching an eight or people can resort to violence very fast.
nine-year-old Harijan girl weave wonderful circles on a The village chowkidar is also the most poorly paid and
cycle late at night in the near darkness of Ambedkar Nagar least looked after minion of the state. He might not be paid
village. So I wrote an on-the-spot sequel to my earlier song. in cash at all. The government could just give him a few
This begins: "Yes, brother, I have learnt cycling. I’m moving acres of land to till. This would be only for the duration of
with the wheel of time his tenure. The land would then revert to the state. He gets
no pension, no provident fund, just two dresses, one shirt
and a cap. If the government is in a generous mood, he
might even get a pair of shoes. Until Valia led his fellow
kotwars in revolt, those given land received salaries as low
as Rs.18 a month. The rest got close to Rs.40.
Fed up with those conditions and constant ill
treatment, he formed the Ztlla Kotwar Union twelve years laughs. He and his nine- member family have five acres of
ago. It was probably the first of its kind in the country. All their own. Another chowkidar, Giridhar Dev, told me in
did not join, but a few score did. Their fight, against huge Thandla block: ‘Valia at least tries to stop group clashes.
odds, saw the trend catch on. Chowkidars in other Most of us are not stupid enough to do that. Especially
districts formed their own unions. Then came joint action. when a clash is just exploding. Why go to the village and
This culminated, five years ago, in the kotwars being paid invite both sides to target you? Don’t wave a stick unless
Rs.500 a month if they took no land. you are sure you can use it.’ Babulal, chowkidar in a
Even that came after many rounds of battle. ‘The Petiawad village, agreed. ‘Once I see them (village clans)
salary went from Rs.40 to Rs.50 to Rs.100 and finally to —
getting ready for battle that's when I visit my relatives in
Rs. 500,’ says Valia. ‘It took many years to get that far. a nearby village.’
Most of the other conditions of work have not changed, It may not be Valia’s way. But the others have a point
really.’ Even if given just the daily minimum wage in too. Valia himself concedes that. The kotwar’s job does not
Madhya Pradesh, the kotwars would get at least Rs.900 a end with maintaining the register of births and deaths. He
month. The most any kotwar seems to have studied is up has other, semi-police functions as well. He reports the
to Class VTII. Valia is a self-educated man. arrival of ‘new’ or ‘suspicious’ characters in a village to the
Organising the chowkidars was not easy. It still isn't. police station. ‘The chowkidar is seen by the villagers as a
The nature of our jobs means that each of us gets tied police agent,’ says Valia. ‘At the same time, the police
down to his village. And your nearest friend is a village suspect his loyalty lies with the clans in his village. So he
away. So when the kotwar goes back to his village, he is can get beaten up by either side. Sometimes by both.’
isolated and at the mercy of his bosses.' But the Valia's policy when a clash seems to be brewing is
persistence paid off. The kotwars fought officialdom’s simple. ‘There was a dispute between two groups in my
attempts to browbeat them. They took marches to Indore —
village just this week. I met both groups together. (After
and twice to Bhopal itself. It was in Indore that they met a while that could be impossible.) I tried hard to work out
CITU leaders who first helped organise their unions and a settlement but failed. So I went to the police thana. But
actions. ‘That's how we got the Rs.500 a month,’ says I took both groups with me. They took up their dispute
Valia. there. I am out of it. One thing is crucial. Both groups must
I first met Valia in Petiawad block HQ, a little away be present during all your efforts.’ Valia may not know it,
from his base in Bamnia. I also met kotwars from other but he is adopting the ‘transparency’ that so many top
parts of Jhabua district. ‘Valia?’ asked one kotwar in a functionaries of state preach but seldom practise.
village in Jhobat. ‘That man is too honest. I think we need ‘At our level,’ says Valia when I put this to him, ‘there
far more strong-arm tactics to get a better deal.’ But he is a compelling reason to be honest. The likelihood of
respects Valia. ‘He was the first to tell the government what violence from those who perceive themselves as being
they could do with their land,’ he said. cheated by you is very high. (Jhabua has one of the highest
Valia is amused when I tell him about that. ‘You only homicide rates in India, say jail officials in Alirajpore
have to see the kind of land they give us to know why,' he town.) Whatever happens, one party is going to get angry
with me. So I do my best to curb doubts about my own younger man will have to take the reins. We are in a bit of
rdie.’ disarray now.' His tiredness and their logistical headaches
There is corruption among the chowkidars, he says. have posed many problems for the unions in recent years.
Wouldn't there be with the kind of deal they get? Some Valia has, in fact, put in his resignation from the kotwar’s
kotwars also seek safety by aligning with the police and post. The patwari had sent him a rude letter demanding
bullying the odd villager. ‘Yet, remember,’ he says, ‘this is that he present himself in a few hours or face the sack.
Bhil territory. If you take money and can’t deliver, you are But when Valia resigned, the patwari didn't accept it. ‘It’s
in big trouble. Is a little extra money worth your life?’ a joke,' says Valia. ‘They sack me three times a year. But
Those are not the only problems. Giridhar Dev pointed they won’t let us go, finally. Where will they find such
4
to other hassles of the sabse chotta jaanwar’ (the smallest cheap labour to perform such a high risk job?’
animal of all). The patwari ill treats us. The tehsildar and
his flunkeys harass us. The SDO bullies us. Every small m
Note: The na es of the kotwars (other than Valia) in this
havaldar pushes us around.’ report are not real. The names of their villages have been
held back altogether. As they put it: ‘Officials have a way of
‘Last week,’ said Babulal, ‘the tehsildar came by. I was
reaching back to the sabse chotta jaanwar and hurting
ordered to go and fetch a chicken and cook it for him. So
them.’
I did that. I also waited on him hand and foot. There are
no working hours for us. We are up at all hours for every

small despot who arrives. Later, they threw Rs. 15 at me
for the chicken. It was worth at least Rs.50 if not more.
The man I took that chicken from has a violent temper.
How can I explain it to him? Now he hates me and one day
will do me some damage.’
Many of the kotwars I met echoed this complaint.
Much of their time went in catering to the whims of visiting
petty dignitaries. What if the slave labour of the kotwars
fails to please such small officials? ‘Then the patwari
suspends us,’ said Giridhar. ‘Anyway, they suspend us
frequently.’ That has happened to Valia too. And more
than once. ‘They can’t reach any lower than us. We are the
final scapegoats for all ills,’ says he.
’In bad situations,’ said one kotwar, ‘we are supposed
to help the police in night patrolling. They never come, but
you have to patrol. If they come at all, it is at safe hours
to give us orders. The risks are all ours.’
‘I am getting old now,’ says Valia. (He is over fifty.) ‘A
is also, in some ways, one of the great experts on the

The writer and the village backwardness of this district. His isolated little village,
Melanmarai Nadu, is now in Kamrajar district after the
division of Ramnad. From here, he chums out insights
into why Ramnad remains the way it does. Every story he
has written in the past twenty-one years is about and
MELANMARAI NADU, Kamrajar (Tamil Nadu): He dropped Ramnad.
located in
out of school in the fifth standard. Some of his short stories Though a Kalki and a leading
prize winning waiter,
are now required reading at the university level. But irony, figure in the Progressive Writers Association, Ponnusamy
always a strong point of Melanmai Ponnusamy's writing,
prefers to live in his cut-off village. Why not move to a big
dogs him all the way. Those stories are read at the
city? ‘That would harm the integrity of the writing,' says
university level in other districts. His beloved Ramnad he. So he remains in Melanmarai Nadu. A place so difficult
does not have a single university of its own.
to find that arrived six hours late for our appointment.
I
I first saw him when he was addressing a public 'You’re going to interview me as an expert on Ramnad’s
meeting late one evening at a crowded hall in Pudukkottai.
poverty? Not as a writer?’ Ponnusamy clearly finds that
Leaning forward against a table, Ponnusamy told his
entertaining.
audience of the dramatic impact of the Gulf War on his
‘Ramanathapuram district was formed in 1910,' says
little Ramnad village. Some farmers there thought they
Ponnusamy. day does it does not have a university
‘To this
had figured out their ‘modernisation’, tractors and all.
of its own. It has now given birth to three districts and two
Then the war began. The steep rise in the prices of petrol,
ministers but not a single medical college.' Nor a
diesel and imported components shattered their plans. government engineering college. And the one private
At this point, the electricity in the hall went off.
engineering institution here might wind up this year.
Ponnusamy didn’t pause for a moment. He got onto the
There are just three colleges of any sort across the new
table and went on with his speech. Nor, after the initial
district and only two postgraduate courses offered at
noise, did the audience budge. They remained spellbound
these.
in the darkness.
‘Backwardness breeds its own mindset,’ says
That was a month ago. Now we are likely to hear him
Ponnusamy. 'There has hardly ever been even a demand
in darkness again. We have spent hours searching for his
for a university in Ramnad. Only in the recent past have
lonely village and it is almost 2 a.m. when we arrive. I have
political parties begun to speak about it. Accepting basic
broken a foot en route and the pain is at its peak. While
education is going to take a couple of generations here.
the dogs rouse everybody for miles around, we apologise
‘Making demands and petitions didn’t come easy to
profusely for waking him up at this hour.
the people of Ramnad. For eighty-three years, the district
He seems surprised: ‘Isn’t this the best time to have a
headquarters was located in another district, in Madurai!
discussion?’ he asks. Moments later, we are deep in one.
Even our law courts were located in that town till just six
Apart from being a highly regarded writer, Ponnusamv
months ago. Only with the division of Ramnad into three
districts in 1985 did that change.’ Ponnusamy has a point. Rarnnad has perhaps the
—
This means, says Ponnusamy who calls himself an
— lowest proportion of ’economically active population
unrepentant leftist ‘that the administration has always around the year’, less than 40 per cent. This means a very
been distanced from the people. Officials were so far away, large number of people are really scraping a living off odd
they knew little of local issues. The area’s complexity was jobs in most months. ‘On the one hand, agriculture has
not understood. Now we have the courts, collectorate and failed because of poor harnessing of water resources. On
other structures. Even so, the old pattern prevails because the other there is no industrial development. In short, no
basic issues have not been touched.’ ‘consciousness-generating employment’. Productivity per
The district is among the lowest in the state in terms worker lags behind the state’s average by about 20 per
of income and, as a rule, lags behind the rest of Tamil Nadu cent.
by about 20 per cent on that score. This is an ex-zamindari Rarnnad has also always had a predominance of
area. It really consisted of many small fiefdoms or economically weaker sections. Scheduled castes and
principalities, mostly run on a caste basis. The extent to tribes make up close to 20 per cent of its people. Besides,
which caste has contributed to backwardness here is the district has a very high proportion of backward classes.
enormous.’ Unemployment levels, among the worst in the state, are
The British period unsettled even that way of life. It highest among these sections. ’We also have some of the
destroyed the few avenues that existed for employment most exploitative relationships in this district.’
and income. ‘A large number of people took to illegal Whether it is the unique Rarnnad moneylender or the
activities. They were left with few other means of survival.’ sorrow of the chilli farmer, Melanmai Ponnusamy has
To this day, Rarnnad has a very high level of violence, chronicled it all. Recurring drought, long-term migration
mainly caste-based, and of crime. —
or the effects of joblessness very little escapes him. And
‘Land reform here, of course, has been meaningless. the insights he has gained looking from down- up, just
Contrary to common belief, this district does have good from his little village, can be startling. Often they match
agricultural potential. But who has ever worked with that the results of the best research.
view in mind?’ More than 80 per cent of landholdings in ‘New types of seeds are being used by the chilli
Rarnnad are less than two acres in size and uneconomical farmers. I do not know where exactly they have come from,
for many reasons. At the top of the list is a lack of but they are distorting the farmer's economy. These seeds
irrigation. may temporarily yield more. But they also compel farmers
‘Employment and the nature of employment mould to spend more and more on fertilisers and agro-chemicals.
such a great part of the human character. If you have a They are killing the land. The yield begins to fall after a
cement factory, you have not just cement, but jobs, of a while. The cost of production is now much higher for those
certain character. But first you need to find the location who have begun to use these seeds.’
and the resources to set up such a factory. There has never All his six collections of short stories and his single
been a real mapping of Ramnad’s resources. And no steps novel, however, reflect an irrepressible optimism. (One
ever taken to create employment of an enduring nature.' collection is titled Humanity Will Win.) ‘The people here
have a fighting spirit and they will change Ramnad

themselves. But we cannot be complacent. We have to The art of Pema Fatiah
work for that.’ And will he meanwhile continue to write
only on Ramnad?
‘I true to my writing. ‘Simply by being veiy
must be
honest to the realities of this village, I might be producing
something relevant to the reality of a village in Uttar BHABRA, Jhabua (M.P.): ‘The havaldar was sitting there,
Pradesh. It depends on whose problems you address, looking over my shoulder, saab. How can one paint under
doesn’t it?’ such conditions? He would keep telling me, "Pema, do a
good job or bada saab will be angry." Can one work under
supervision of the police? My hand stops and it shakes in
fear. This happened to me many times.’
His paintings have been on display in London, Rome
and other parts of the world. People pay the price of
admission to see them in Bharat Bhavan, Bhopal. He has
twice won state awards for art in Madhya Pradesh. Severed
of his works decorate the walls of senior government
officers. But Pema Fatiah, perhaps the foremost exponent
of the Bhil art of ‘Pithora’, now lives in penury. Recovering
from a paralytic stroke at his home in Bhabra village of
Bhabra block here, the Bhil tribal is struggling to regain
his prowess. The stroke affected his painting arm.
The Pithora painting can vary in size, but is usually
large. The artist mostly does his painting directly on walls.
Some of Pema’s works are grand murals. The Pithora is a
tribed world picture. Everything the Bhil sees, senses or
experiences is captured here. The horse, central to Bhil
mythology, figures prominently. But figures less
connected with mythology also appear. The moneylender,
for instance. Or, often, the police thanedar. Both are very
major realities in the lives of the Bhil tribals. You can also
suddenly come across a motorcycle or an aeroplane in one
of these paintings. Pema may be among the best but is by
no means a lone representative of the art. Many creative
artists across this region produce works that really delight.
Despots , Distillers, Poets & Artists 311
But the Pithora is more than just a form of traditional
painting, says Dr. Amita Baviskar of the Delhi School of commissioned Pema to do a painting for the Collectorate.
Economics. She is a scholar who has worked among He paid him Rs.5,000 for it, a huge sum in those days and
communities in this area. The Pithora lias a ritual the first time Pema was getting anything like it. (For his
context, she says. And that is a deeply religious one. The work, locally, he got payments in kind, and sometimes a
painting usually comes up as part of a religious ceremony little cash.) It was also perhaps the last time he got paid
or puja. The artist while working is said to be possessed. that way in Jhabua.
The gods are speaking through him. When the painting is Gopalakrishnan had Pema's work displayed in
done, the pujari will scrutinise the work to see if the Bhopal. There, it won the artist his two state awards. It
essence of what the gods are saying has been captured. also caught the attention of many leading artists,
The Pithora draws its authenticity from its sacred including J. Swaminathan. Pema’s work was now widely
character.’ exhibited. The artist remembers that part of his experience
Pema wastrained by his father in a line he says is a with relish. Gopalakrishnan and Swaminathan are the
hereditary occupation. Quite a few of the materials that go only individuals from that world he remembers fondly. He
into his work, he makes himself. Some of the pastes and was really pained to learn from us that Swaminathan was
colours come from oxides, minerals, fruit and other no more. With that painter, perhaps, Pema struck an
substances locally available. He still has to buy a few artist- to- artist connection. Of the officer, he says: 'Gopal
materials, though. saab was very good to me.’
Some of Pema’s murals are stunning. One that hangs Gopal saab himself is not so sure. He is now secretary
in the Jhabua collectorate (done on cloth), for instance. to the chief minister of Madhya Pradesh. ‘If I knew what
Even more appealing are the traditional works he has done was to happen to him subsequently,’ he says ruefully, ‘I
directly on walls in his area. One was not less than eighty do not know how I would have gone about it. The man was
square feet in size. Its colours seemed almost luminous. a genius. I did not expect the events that followed.’ All that
The work itself captured a mix of myth and daily life. he had intended was that a great artist get the recognition
Alongside the horses were wells, a pump, a motorbike due to him.
surrounded by snakes, a policeman. Green, red, brown Pema’s problems began when Gopalakrishnan left the
and patches of white seemed to change hue as the angle district. He now had recognition, but no protection. A large
of sunlight shifted. Here, the gods of painting, at least, had number of officials, high and low, began to force paintings
spoken. out of him. The havaldar would come and tell me, saab is
That one was done when I was well and enjoyed my calling you,’ he says. “And I went. It could be one of many
work,’ says Pema. So how did it come about that he ceased saabs. The SP, the DSP, the SDM or even the tehsildar.’
to enjoy it? And so, Pema Fatiah worked, sometimes with a havaldar
Pema was discovered—outside his own societal
first or some other flunkey keeping an eye on him. ’Sometimes,
context —by R. Gopalakrishnan, collector of Jhabua in the they would give me a little money. Sometimes, I paid for
mid- ’80s. Astonished by the quality of his work, the officer that work out of my own pocket,’ he says. Pema was now
working for a bunch of gods very different from his own.
3 12 Everybody Loves a Good Drought Despots, Distillers, Poets & Artists 313
Soon the pressure of this got too much for Pema to

bear.As his fame grew, so did his misery. His visits to
Bhopal were a sort of release. At the same time, he ended
up doing even more paintings that he never got paid for.
For a Gopalakrishnan, to whom he mattered as
a person,
Pema was a great artist. For many he was just a
others,
peasant producing something of value. Perhaps a work
that could be profitably sold in the future. For the
policeman overseeing his work in Jhabua, he was just a
contemptible adivasi who produced something his bosses
wanted. ‘Pema's story is a good example of how an urban
elite can appropriate tribal art,’ says Gopalakrishnan. His
work was tom from its roots, robbed of its context. Under
this pressure, Pema became an alcoholic.
Finally, he cracked. He had a bad fall while on tour.
This came towards the end of a night when he had drunk
quite a bit. That was in November 1993, around Diwali
time, he recalls. ‘The next morning, I woke up and found Perhaps the foremost exponent of the Bhil art of Pithora% Pema Fatiah now lives
f
my right hand paralysed. I was really frightened.’ The in penury. This is a mural done on the inside wall of a hut by Pema with his right
arm which has been affected by a paralytic stroke „
stroke also affected his speech. He returned home

immediately. He soon found he could do no other work went far beyond Bhabra.
either. Now, meeting him a month
. later, I find Pema
Learning of his tragedy, Gopalakrishnan arranged for exercising his right arm. ‘I think it might heal in time,’ he
the government to bear his medical expenses. These ran says. He holds my elbow and directs me to a nearby house
to over Rs. 20,000. The officer also found a job for him in to show me the work he is attempting. ‘It helps me to try
the Bharat Bhavan. ‘But,’ says Pema, ‘I could not take it and paint,’ he says. It is not Pema at his best, but it is, at
up in my condition.’ least, a fresh start. Perhaps one day the art of Pema Fatiah
When I first met Pema Fatiah in Bhabra, Meerza Ismail will work for his own gods again.
Beg, a retired teacher from Indore —himself an artist—was
with me. The depth of Pema’s knowledge and the simple
way he explained his craft to us held us spellbound. His
wife proudly posed by her husband when we took
photographs, though she would not raise her veil until his
elder brother was out of the way. She clearly knew her
husband was a great talent, a great painter whose fame
Everybody
Loves
a Good
Drought
Water problems, real and rigged

Everybody Loves A Good Drought 317
ROUGHT
D problems
IS,
this
beyond question,
beyond question, among the more serious
country faces. Drought
is rural
almost equally
relief,
India’s biggest growth industry.

Often, there between the two. Relief can go to
is little relation
rainfall. Even where it goes to scarcity

regions that get lots of
areas, those most in need seldom benefit from it. The poor in
such regions understand this. That’s why some of them call
drought relief teesra fast (the third crop). Only, they are not the
ones who harvest it.
A great deal of drought ‘relief goes into contracts handed

over to private parties. These are to lay roads, dig wells, send
—
out water tankers, build bridges, repair tanks the works. Think
that can’t total up to much? Think again. The money
that goes
into this industry ina single year can make the withdrawals from
Bihar’s animal husbandry department look like so many minor
fiddles. And the Bihar scam tasted a decade and a half. The
charm of this scam is that is largely ‘legal’. And it has soul. It’s
it
all in a good cause. The tragedy, of course, is that it rarely
addresses the real problems of drought and water scarcity.

In 1994-95 alone, the rich state of Maharashtra spent over
Rs.1 ,170 crores on emergency measures in combating drought
and. on other water-related problems. This was more than the
combined profits the previous year of leading companies all
across the country in the organised sector of the tea and coffee,
cement and automobile industries. Their profits after tax came
to Rs.1, 149 crores, according to a report of the Centre for
Monitoring the Indian Economy. (‘Corporate Finances: Industry
Aggregates’, CMIE, November 1994, Bombay.)
In August 1 995, Prime Minister Narasimha Rao inaugurated
an anti-drought project in Orissa. This one will involve spending
Rs.4,557 crores in six years (over Rs.750 crores a year) on just
a few districts including Kalahandi, Bolangir and Koraput. Every
paisa of that huge sum would be worth spending if actually it
fought scarcity and built better infrastructure. That, however, is

most unlikely. In part because the main causes of the problems
Everybody Loves a Good Drought Everybody Loves A Good Drought 319
these areas face do not even begin to get and now a separate district, got 2,366 mm of rainfall in 1994.
addressed.
In Palamau, too, average rainfall is not bad. The district gets
In theory, drought-prone blocks
come under a central
scheme known as the Drought-Prone Areas 1,200-1,230 mm of rain in a normal year. In its worst year in
Programme recent history, it received 630 mm. Some districts in India get
(DPAP). But bringing blocks into the DPAP
is now a purely less without experiencing the same damage.
political decision. The central allocation for DPAP may be
nominal. But once a block Surguja’s rainfall seldom falls below 1,200 mm. In some
is under DPAP, a phalanx of other
schemes follows bringing in
years it gets 1,500-1,600 mm. That’s roughly four times what
huge sums of money. The same
blocks then get money coming in under California gets. And California grows grapes.
the employment
assurance scheme (EAS), anti-desertification Yet, all these districts have problems relating to water that
projects, drinking
water missions and a host of other schemes. are quite deadly. Very different ones from those the funds
Well, some people address. Simply put, we have several districts in India that have
do benefit.
In several states, data on DPAP show us many
official
—
an abundance of rainfall but where one section, the poor, can
interesting things. In Maharashtra, the suffer acute drought. That happens when available water
number of DPAP blocks
was around ninety six years ago. In 1996, 147 blocks resources are colonised by the powerful. Further, the poor are
are under
the DPAP. In Madhya Pradesh in the never consulted or asked to participate in designing the
same period, the number
of DPAP blocks more than doubled ‘programmes’ the anti-drought funds bring.
from roughly sixty to around
1 35. In Bihar, there were
fifty-four DPAP blocks right through
Once it was clear that drought and DPAP were linked to fund
the
80s. This became fifty-five when Rameshwar flows in a big way, it followed that everyone wanted their block
Thakur became a
union minister in the early '90s. His home under the scheme. In many cases, the powerful are not only able
block in Bihar came
under the scheme. Today, there are 122 DPAP to bring their blocks under it, but appropriate any ‘benefits’ that
blocks in that
state. follow.
has happened during a period where there have

All this Take Maharashtra. Around 73 per cent of sugar cane
been produced in the state is grown in DPAP blocks! And sugar cane
several successive good monsoons. There
has been scarcity too
is about the most water-intensive crop you can get. Secondly,
for some
people. But that’s a different story.
Kalahandi’s major problem, as the reports in the area under irrigation Maharashtra is pathetic. Just inching
in
this section
show, does not arise from poor rainfall. Water towards 5 per cent of crop land. But in the DPAP blocks, in one
1
resources experts
and administrators would largely agree that, barring
problems of
—
estimate, it is 22 per cent nearly 50 per cent higher than the
erratic timing and spread, most Indian state average. Annual rainfall in Lonavla near Pune seldom falls
districts could get by on
around 800 mm of rainfall annually. The lowest rainfall below 1 ,650 mm and can touch 2,000 mm. Lonavla is a DPAP
Kalahandi
has had in the past twenty years was 978 mm. block.
That is way above
what some districts get in ‘normal’ years. Otherwise, The many hundreds of crores spent in Maharashtra on relief
Kalahandi’s
annual rainfall has been, on an average, 1 ,250 mm. and on over the years have not led to any appreciable
irrigation
That is pretty
decent. In 1990-91 the rise in land under irrigation. In the DPAP blocks are small farmers
district had 2,247 mm of rainfall. Besides,
,
Kalahandi produces more food per person than both who really feel the pressure. The water is cornered by the rich
Orissa and
India as a whole do. Nuapada, the worst and the strong. Governments kid themselves that by throwing
part of old Kalahandi,
320 Everybody Loves a Good Drought Everybody Loves A Good Drought 321
money at such regions, the small fish, who have big votes, can
intelligent, resourceful people among them. They are bright,
be pacified. In reality, the lion’s share of funds going there is again have an ear to the ground, react quickly to situations. Quite a few
appropriated by the powerful. And irrigation water? About two of them are also small contractors. So are many block-level
per cent of farmers in the state use around 70 per cent of it. politicians. (So are many national politicians and newspaper
Drought is a complex phenomenon. You can have an owners, but that’s another story.)
agricultural drought, for instance, even when there is no Reports of raging drought put pressure on a district
meteorological drought. That is, you can have adequate rainfall administration strapped for resources. (Some of the stories have
and still have crop failure. Or you can have hydrological drought, strong elements of truth, though death counts are often
with marked depletion of rivers, streams, springs and fall in exaggerated.) The collector calls his friends: the district level
groundwater levels. The reasons for these are well known but correspondents. He explains that his district gets far less from
seldom addressed, it is so much nicer to just put the whole thing the state capital than other, neighbouring ones. This could well
down to nature’s vagaries. It also works this way because so be true. The collector is also pitching at the state capital for a
many forces, at different levels, are either integrated, or get better share of the resource cake. Reports of ‘stepmotherly
co-opted, into the drought industry. The spiral from the drought treatment’ of Surguja, or whichever district it is, start appearing
scam touches the global stage before returning. in newspapers in the state capital.
Here’s how: Take any one district. Say Surguja (it could be That embarrasses the state government. How does it
any other). The peasants face many water-related problems. respond? While doing what it can locally, it also pitches at the
Block-level forces —contractors —
and politicians take up ‘the Centre for more funds to deal with the drought. State
cause’. The complaint, typically, is: Our block got far less funds
governments often bring down correspondents from mainline
than the others. The collector is ignoring us. That's why its journals to the state capital. These reporters then set off on a
happening. guided tour of the ‘affected areas’. Governments often have
two things are happening, really. One, the peasants of
Well, vehicles reserved for the purpose of press tours. And often, a
Surguja face serious problems that are intensifying. Two, specific senior official goes with the journalists to the trouble spots.
forces are making a pitch at the district headquarters for bringing The sophisticated writers of the urban press are superior to
more funds to the block. when comes to the heart-rending stuff. The
the local press it
The local stringer of a newspaper (based in, say, Bilaspur), drought becomes a national issue. Copy full of phrases like
takes up the theme: the collector is Most
neglecting ‘our block’. 'endless stretches of parched land’, accompanied by
newspapers pay their stringers a pittance. Some stringers get as photographs, reaches urban audiences. (Now parched land is
little as Rs.50 a month. So only those with other sources of funds
not necessarily a symbol of drought. You can have it in very wet
can work in this capacity. In many parts of these districts, you places you drain a pond. And you can have an acute water
if
will find that the stringer is often a small shopkeeper, a petty

shortage in seemingly green areas. But parched land makes
businessman. better copy and pictures.) This is more true of the English press.
If contracts for various ‘public works’ come to the block or The language press has serious problems, but is closer to the
district, the stringer might be among the beneficiaries. This is not ground.
true of all, but does apply to quite a few stringers. I met many If it is, say, mid-May when reporters reach the affected
region, the searing heat will impress some. With your skin and
hair on fire, it is easy to believe there has been drought in the consultants to be clothed and fed. Projects are drawn up with
area since the dawn of time. There could be flooding here two their assistance for fighting drought in the district. Or for water
months hence, but that doesn’t matter now. Unlike the resource management. Or for anything at all. Studies of water
quick-on-the-uptake local stringers, the national press is seldom problems are vital. But some of these are thought up simply
clued in on ground reality. There are, of course, many reporters because there are funds now. (The collector and a lot of peasants
who could handle the real stories of the place. They don’t often in the district could probably tell you a great deal about the real
get sent on such trips. Those are not the kind of stories their water problems. But they’re not ‘experts’.)
publications are looking for. Every editor knows that drought The money goes to the state capital where the struggle over
means parched land and, hopefully, pictures of emaciated sharing it continues. At the district level, the blocks pitch for their
people. That’s what ‘human interest’ is about, isn’t it?
share. Contracts go out for various emergency works. A little
The state has made its pitch at the Centre. The Centre is
money might even get spent on those affected by the water
unfazed. It uses what
considers examples of responsible
it
shortage. But it cannot solve their problems.
reporting (that is, reports that do not vilify the Centre) to The next year the same problems will crop up all over again
advantage. It makes its own pitch for resources. International because the real issues were never touched.
funding agencies, foreign donors, get into the act. UNDP, At the end of it, many forces including well-meaning sections
UNICEF, anyone who can throw a little money about. The global of the press have been co-opted into presenting a picture of
aidcommunity is mobilised into fighting drought in a district that natural calamity. Too often, into dramatising an event without
gets 1 ,500 mm of rainfall annually. looking at the processes behind it. The spiral works in different
The reverse spiral begins. ways in different states. But works. it
Donor governments love emergency relief. It forms a And yet, so many people do suffer from water-related
negligible part of their spending, but makes for great advertising. problems. Several of India’s more troublesome conflicts are
(Emergencies of many sorts do this, not just drought. You can linked to water. It may have taken a back seat, but the sharing
run television footage of the Marines kissing babies of river waters was a major part of the Punjab problem. The
in Somalia.)
There are more serious issues between rich and poor ongoing quarrel between Tamil Nadu and Karnataka is over
nations—like unequal trade. Settling those would be of greater Cauvery waters. (Some of India’s tensions with Bangladesh have
help to the latter. But for that, the ‘donors’ would have to part with their basis in water sharing disputes.) The struggle over water
something for real. No. They prefer emergency relief. resources operates at the micro, village level, too, in many ways.
So money comes into Delhi from several sources. The next Between villages, between hamlets within a village, between
step in the downward spiral is for central departments to fight castes and classes. (For more on drought-related issues, also
over it. Nothing awakens the conscience like a lot of money. One see the sections on displacement, survival, usury and fightback.)
department or ministry remembers it has a mission to save the Conflicts arising from man-made drought are on the rise.
forests of the suffering district. Another recalls a commitment to Deforestation does enormous damage. Villagers are
manage its water resources. increasingly losing control over common water resources. The
Then there are all the hungry, Rs.30,000-a-month destruction of traditional irrigation systems is gaining speed. A
process of privatisation of water resources is apparent in most
Everybody Loves a Good Drought
of the real drought areas (take the

water lords of Ramnad, for
instance). There are now two kinds of drought: the real and
rigged. Both can be underway at the
same time, in the same
the
The sale of a girl - 1
place. As the reports that follow seek
to show, they often are.
AMLAPALI, Nuapada (Orissa): It was the human interest

story of the '80s. A story about the sale of a girl in this
village.A story that touched the conscience of a nation and
brought Kalahandi into sharp focus. In a sense, the
journalism of that period does symbolise some of the better
efforts of the press. As it does some of its limitations.
It was in July 1985 that Phanas Punji, in her early
thirties, shot to notoriety. She had, so the story went, ‘sold’

her fourteen-year-old sister-in-law, Banita Punji, to the
nearly blind Bidya Podh. He paid Rs.40 to ‘buy’ Banita and
use her as a ‘domestic servant'. Phanas’s husband had
abandoned her two years earlier. And she was widely
quoted in the press as saying: ‘My own two children are
starving. What could I do?’
Everyone observed that she did not deny selling the
girl. The story shook the nation. It appalled Rajiv Gandhi,
then prime minister. Worse, his office received
confirmation of the sale. He decided to go and have a look
at Kalahandi himself.
Hordes of officials descended on this part of
Kalahandi. (It is now a separate district called Nuapada.
Not so much to set things right, as to prepare for the prime
ministerial tour. And scores of reporters reached
Nuapada, even today one of India’s poorest districts. After
all, the prime minister himself was going there. You
couldn’t miss an event like that.

The episode produced some of the most stirring
journalism of the '80s. Some brilliant reporting destroyed
the efforts at a cover-up by the then J.B. Patnaik
Last week, I met Phanas Punji at Amlapali. I also spoke

government. The misery of Kalahandi stood naked. More to Banita and Bidya Podh at Badtunda. With me was
reports followed as journalists met the myriad faces of ex-MLA Kapil Narain Tiwari. He was instrumental in
poverty in the region. Moving stories on drought and
breaking the original story. He has also done more than
scarcity conditions appeared in profusion. There was an
any other politician to highlight Kalahandi’s plight.
almost missionary zeal to it.
Now an anganwadi worker, Phanas has lost even more
Television did what print could not. It brought the
of the meagre lands her husband’s family once owned. All
actors in the drama, including J.B. Patnaik, in person
of it to moneylenders. Her husband, however, is back.
before the public eye. M.J. Akbar’s TV interview with
‘But,’ she said, ‘he is unemployed most of the year as
Patnaik rattled the chief minister. He later denounced it
in public as concocted’. Patnaik also damaged himself before.' Banita, now twenty-two, Badtunda village
lives at
further in the state assembly. There, he implied that the in Bolangir district. That’s just a few kilometres away. She
sale of children was a ‘tradition’ in parts of western Orissa. is still with the ‘blind old man’ and they have three children
The press crusade had an effect. It forced two prime to whom both seem greatly attached.
ministers, two chief ministers and countless ministers to
visit Nuapada-Kalahandi over the years. That
meant better • Banita and Bidya Podh are no better off than Phanas.
roads, improved communications and some repairs to Banita, too, is an anganwadi worker (‘I do the cooking
bridges. These receive attention only when a VIP shows there*). The effectiveness of the anganwadi scheme is
up. apparent in the condition of her own three children. All
The crusade also brought huge funds for development. are malnourished, the youngest one severely so. Both
Innumerable projects were announced, mostly for Phanas and Banita were earning Rs.100 a month in
—
Kalahandi though poverty is hardly exclusive to this their jobs till a short while ago. Now they earn Rs.210
region. Voluntary agencies, many of them floating in a month. That's about a third of what they would get if
foreign funds, descended on the district in droves—to paid the official m
inimum wage of Rs.25 per day in
promote development. Orissa. Neither is able to feed her family properly. Both
Those were proud moments for the media. look after out-of-work husbands.
But nine years later, all the principal actors in that
drama are in much the same state they were. Perhaps, in • As Bidya Podh, no one ever spoke to him. Not even
for
some ways, worse off. when on the ‘sale of a girl’ were being done.
the reports
Kalahandi and Nuapada remain seemingly untouched That might have spoilt the story. Apparently,
,
by the crores of rupees and hordes of projects thrown at humanising the story meant demonising some. Podh
them. J.B. Patnaik, too, is worse off. He is no longer chief was a soft target. After all, wasn’t going to read the
minister. stories. He became, in some reports, the ‘blind old man’
who had ’bought Banita’ and cruelly exploited her. One
He has returned to that post since this report first appeared in print.
story cast him as the blind old ‘landlord’. Another had
• Kapil Tiwari hasn’t changed either. It would be a great

pity if he did. The man who describes himself as a
below-the-poverty-line ex-MLA' is as angry as ever at
what is happening in Kalahandi. He still relentlessly
fights injustice in his role of independent political
maverick.
I met and photographed all of them together: their lives

ridiculously untouched by the furious national debate that
raged around them.
• As I from the poverty-stricken border

write, migrants
zone of Nuapada-Bolangir are moving, as in 1985. Only,
in larger numbers. Their destinations range from
Raipur, where they will pull rickshaws, to Bombay,
where they will toil at construction sites. The frightening
levels of joblessness propelling them are rising.
• The flesh trade sending women to Raipur's brothels is

thriving. The inequity of landholding patterns of old
Kalahandi has not improved. The moneylenders to
From left: Phonos Punji, ex-MLA Kapil Narain Tiwari, andBanita and Bidya Podh
with their three children. Nine years after the drama which shook a nation, all whom the Phanas Punjis of the world alienate their land
the
principal actors are in much the same state as they were. Perhaps, in some
ways, may be less in number. They seem more powerful in
worse off.
scope, though. The public health system is a mess.
him buying the girl for Rs.40 and then ‘abandoning’ her Worse, malaria is rampant.
after satiating his lust.
Far from being the ’landlord' Banita was sold to, Podh • The development proj ects meant to help Kalahandi have
is landless. He does not even own homestead land. The
changed. But only in name and number. In effect, they
roof over their heads belongs to one of his uncles. Podh’s
are mostly the same. Lacking popular roots, they tend
sight is very badly impaired, indeed. Some mi ght call
to fail. Some district administrators have tried the odd
him blind, yes. But he can see well enough to recognise positive intervention. Yet, distress sales of land, labour
his visitors. He certainly knew me the second time I went
and produce are very much there too. In short,
to his hut.
Nuapada, and all Kalahandi, are largely the same.
Old? The ‘blind old landlord’ was a young man in his
twenties when the episode took place in 1985. The story on the ‘sale’ of a girl had this positive effect:
Itdrew attention to Kalahandi. But, the question remains.

What in Kalahandi did it draw attention to? The Sale Of a girl - 2
AMLAPALI, Nuapada Nine years after Phanas

(Orissa):
Punji ‘sold’ her fourteen-year-old sister-in-law Banita to
the nearly blind Bidya Podh for Rs.40, the lives of all the
actors in that drama remain largely unchanged. Never
mind that it sparked off a furious national debate that
made Kalahandi a byword for poverty.
‘Prime Minister Gandhi’s visit made no
Rajiv
difference,’ Phanas told me. (He came here in mid- 1985.)
‘Others may have got loans, I got nothing. Only, a lot of
people came and took photographs of me.’
The cover stories on Phanas and Banita in 1985
emphasised the issue of the ‘sale of a girl’. That touched
a nation's conscience and brought some relief to
—
Kalahandi never mind who cornered the benefits. Yet,
the ‘sale of a issue proved a double-edged sword.
girl'
It had one truly positive result: had the press not
rammed home that aspect so powerfully, the story would

never have gained the same emotional appeal. And it is
highly unlikely that Kalahandi would have got the
attention, sympathy and relief that it did. At the same time,
the focus on the event, and the subsequent dispute over
whether it was indeed a sale, obscured important
processes leading to it.
Sure, the ‘sale’ story linked up with the coverage of
drought and poverty. But the reporting on the latter was
not so brilliant. Indeed, it bristled with errors and
stereotypes. In any case, whatever the reports aimed at,
the focus was on the ‘sale’. Politically, that took centre
stage.
Banita, now around twenty-two, sees the issues attention she needed, it would do. She extremely media
is
beyond the sale —she is still with Bidya Podh and they have conscious and knows her lines to perfection. She quickly
three children. The family, like Phanas, is very poor. understood that the ‘sale’ story was what mattered. And
‘Phanas sold some of my land,’ points out Banita. ‘She she has stuck to it. ’Yes, I sold her for Rs.40,’ she says.
wanted me out of the way so she could sell it.’ When Yet, when Banita walked out on Podh for that period,
Phanas s husband deserted her for two years, he left the Phanas did not hesitate to take her back into the house.
village as well. Who knew if he would come back? Banita All of them recognise each other as family. It was Phanas
was the other owner of the family land. Did Phanas sell who took me to meet Banita.
her sister-in-law (or force her into wedding the unassertive Banita was purely a victim. So is Phanas, of much the
simpleton Podh) as a means of doing Banita out of that same forces as Banita. But she has also been a bit of an
land? Banita was just fourteen at the time and hardly in operator. She always kept the focus on herself: the
a position to protest. miserably poor woman forced to sell her sister-in-law.
This seems Banita’s major concern on that score and Everybody but everybody spoke to Phanas. She has told
with good reason. Much of the land is already with and sold her story many times over. From prime ministers
moneylenders. ‘Amlapali,’ as Dr S.K. Pattnaik of the NGO, to reporters, everyone making the pilgrimage to Amlapali
Vikalpa, points out, ‘is a classic example of land alienation has left some money with Phanas. And indeed they might.
via debt.’ Phanas and her family remain in that trap. Hers is a story of grinding poverty. So is that of Banita and
Bidya Podh did not ‘abandon’ Banita soon after Podh. But no one sought a single statement or quote from
’buying’ her, as stories in 1986 suggested. Fed up with her either of them. In the ‘relief that followed, they got nothing.
mother-in-law’s behaviour, Banita returned to —
How come Banita even allowing for social
—
Phanas the very woman said to have sold her. Podh —
pressures remains with Bidya Podh when she could
begged her to return, promising his mother would behave leave? After all, the entire force of the state would be
and that he would work to support Banita. She returned behind her. The sale of children still occurs. But Banita
to him and has remained for years. The second promise wasn’t exactly a child then and certainly isn’t one now.
has fallen through as Podh remains jobless. The Phanas Punji admits land has passed out of the family’s
mother-in-law, though, behaved. Podh’s entire family, hands. Did all of them understand their problems the way
actually, was all in favour of the wedding. They did not the rest of us did?
look on it as a sale or a purchase. Whether in the rural or Banita’s is a trap of economic necessity and social
the urban world, it is very difficult to find a partner for a pressure. But she displays no resentment towards Podh.
physically disabled person. That is why Podh’s uncle gave ‘We had no proper marriage ceremony. After all, who has
the homeless couple a hut to live in. the money? Looking after my children is the main thing.
Interestingly, Banita does not see it in ‘sale’ or IfBidya gets a job, it would be better. Can you help him
purchase terms either. AsPhanas, if she calmly
for get one?’ Her anxieties capture one of Kalahandi-
accepted the ’sale’ story, she had reason to. It helped. If Nuapada’s biting problems: unemployment. Phanas’ son
this was the story that would get her the help and the Jagbandhu is also jobless. One thing repeatedly strikes us
in our talk with Banita: how this young woman sees so
clearly the issues the experts and the press miss out on. Pradhan of the Paschim Orissa Krishijeevi Sangha points
Thousands here migrate each year to survive. ‘Things out, the lowest rainfall Kalahandi has had in the past
are so bad,’ says Duryodhan Sabar, ‘that even smaller twenty years is 978 mm. That is way above what some
landowners who once kept bonded labour are migrating.’ districts in India get in ‘normal’ years. Otherwise,
Sabar, a tribal, is an activist of the Jagrut Shramik Kalahandi's annual rainfall has been, on an average,
Sanghatan. As a former bonded labourer, he once led a 1,250 mm. That is pretty decent, though the spread is
struggle against bondage in this region. uneven.
Phanas and her kin are still the way they are, one
If In 1 990-91 the district recorded rainfall of 2,247 mm.
,
question comes up. If all the development projects worth The spread was okay. But it did not greatly reduce
crores of rupees, all the media exposures, and all the NGOs suffering. So maybe poor rainfall is not the problem?
with their foreign funds could not transform the lives of Besides, as Pradhan says, ‘Kalahandi has remained a
— —
this one family after all that publicity then what, really, food surplus district all this while. And that despite
has been achieved in Kalahandi? Imagine the state of monumental crop failures.’ Kalahandi produces more food
those who received no such attention. per person than both Orissa and India as a whole do. But
The achievements of the press in the mid-’80s were its own inhabitants consume only 25 per cent of that food.
very real. At one level, they set a trend, however transient, The rest goes out of the region through networks of
of more sympathetic coverage of the poor. If a nation was merchant- moneylenders
sensitised to the misery of Kalahandi, it was due to the Per capita production of food for all of India was 203
relentless assault of the press on the hypocrisy of the J.B. kg per —
citizen in 1989-90. For Orissa with the largest
Patnaik government. Yet, Nuapada-Kalahandi’s problems —
percentage of people below the poverty line it was 253
are much more than just the result of Patnaik’s kg. In Kalahandi the same year, per capita production of
incompetence. And more than just the result of drought food was 331 kg. That beats the state and national
or scarcity. averages hollow. Even so, people do suffer acute hunger.
What got obscured were the linkages between And parents do abandon children because there isn’t
conditions in Kalahandi and policies at the state and enough to survive on.
national levels. And drought is still mostly viewed as a But at the best of times, the press has viewed drought
natural calamity, despite considerable evidence to the and scarcity as events. And the belief that only events
contrary in many cases. It is ridiculous to expect the press make news, not processes, distorts understanding. Some
to transform reality, but it can contribute a great deal by of the best reports on poverty suffer from trying to
deepening public understanding of problems. Doing that dramatise it as an event. The real drama is in the process.
requires some analytical rigour. In the causes.
Even the best reports on Kalahandi in 1 985-86 spoke Deforestation has much to do with drought. But being
of 'perpetual drought and scarcity conditions’. Some even a process, it becomes a ‘feature’. And then disappears into
talked of ‘twenty years of drought’. The truth? As Jagdish —
the newspaper ghetto called ‘ecology’ presumed to be of
interest only to rabid ‘Greens'.
detailed look at the stories of that period. Alongside the

The reality? The investment in all
combined
achievements were also distressing attitudes. Positive impact
development projects in Orissa since independence is
does not excuse stereotypes.
eclipsed by the commercial value of renewable timber and
One of the most widely read stories of that period began:
forests lost in making way for them.
‘Here is a picture of hell.’ It went on to say that all those who were
So many other factors get nowhere near the attention
‘unable to get away’ from Kalahandi were ‘dead or dying’.
they need. The destruction of Kalahandi’s traditional
Those who remained ‘move in groups, licking water, like
irrigation systems, for one. And flawed development
dogs’. There you have the essence of an upper middle class view
strategies that hurt thousands, for another. Some of these
end up spurring the migrations they seek to curb. Also,
of the poor —as animals. Animals to be pitied, perhaps, but
animals all the same. Like dogs. But that wasn’t all.
vicious usury that sees people in distress selling paddy at
less than half the official support price. And a skewered
'For food they pick up the poisonous roots and leaves —the
only thing that grow there.’ It was the first time got to know
will I
landholding pattern with ever growing alienation. These

that people went out to pick up poisonous roots. had thought
I
too need to be viewed in conjunction with the sale of

that happened by accident. But, after all, what else can you pick
children they result in.
up if that is the ‘only thing that will grow there’. The story very
When processes like these become news, there could correctly spoke of the 1965 drought as a major event. But then
be a chance of beating the Kalahandi syndrome.
went on to speak of a twenty-year d rought. (The rainfall data says
otherwise.)
There was much to respect in the story’s detailing of the
Postscript
crisis and drought of 1985. It deserved great credit for its
exposure of official failure. It did speak of some economic factors.
When I last visited Nuapada in May-June 1 995, it was clear that
But the focus remained on the ‘sale’ and on natural calamity. And
most problems remained the same. Incidentally,
of the basic
the attitudes and stereotypes keep coming through. ‘Nature
Phanas’ house continues to be a place of journalistic pilgrimage.
(had) been cruel.’ There had been a ‘long famine’. There was 'no
The other villagers of Amlapali resent this quite a bit. ‘Everyone
longer any hope in the area’. These only help take the focus off
comes here and gives her money,’ they say. ‘Have the rest of us
why people stay poor.
no problems?’ Even on an earlier trip, while I was looking at the
Things haven’t changed too much in some ways. Quite a
pattern of land alienation in the village, people made a point of
few journals still freely interchange the words ‘drought’ and
tellingme this. Everyone in Kalahandi has a story. famine’. Obviously, these two mean very different things. But the
Was Banita’s a case of a child ‘sale’? Just as there is such
word famine’ is more alarmist and makes better copy. In 1986,
a thing as dowry, there is the practice of bride price. Which
one editor argued thatthe difference between the two was merely
framework does Banita’s case fall into? Who is to decide?
‘semantic’. Present-day efforts at covering poverty still insist on
Banita’s decision is Podh.
to stay with
the events approach. Poverty gets covered in breathless tones
The stories that appeared in 1985-86 had a strong impact
of horror and shock that suggest something new has happened
on me, like they did on most others reading the newspapers in
even when it hasn’t.
the ’80s. After the first two trips made in 1994, had a more
I I
Apparently, crisis merits attention only when it results in
catastrophe, not earlier. It takes years for a food surplus district The water lords of Ramnad - 1
like Kalahandi to arrive at where it has. But that isa process. It
does not make news. Maybe it is still worth writing about, though?
RAMANATHAPURAM (Tamil Nadu): Ramu doesn’t spend

too much time on agriculture these days. True, he is one
of the bigger landowners in Keelathooval village here. But
he is into a business that pays far better. Ramu owns a
bore we 11 and an electric pumpset.
That makes the young entrepreneur a “water lord’
(thaneer adipathy) in Ramnad (or Ramanathapuram). This
is a chronically drought-prone district that has suffered
an average rainfall deficiency of around 112 mm per year
in the last decade. And rainfall in the first five months of
this year makes even those bad days look good. It’s less
than ten per cent of what it was during the corresponding
period for any year in the awful '80s.
Close to 90 per cent of irrigated area here depends for
water on 1,841 rain-fed tanks. That means the people of
Ramnad live at the mercy of the monsoon. This district
does not have a single perennial river. Even its share of
wells is 20 per cent below the Tamil Nadu average. Farmers
who don’t have access to water resources and pumpsets
have to buy water from those who do. Those in
Keelathooval and some other villages of the
Mudukulluthur taluka have to hire Ramus services to
draw water from the dismally low levels at which it exists
in wells and tanks.
Ramu charges Rs. 12 per hour for the use of his
three -horse power (HP) electric pumpset during the
agricultural season. On that basis, he netted Rs.2,000 in
forty-five days from just one small farmer and neighbour
of his, Karuppannan. And he has a long list of clients.
because he uses a 5 HP oil pumpset. He operates on a

grand scale, servicing farmers in Etivayal, Thiyanoor and
five or six other villages. He’s also more into drawing water
from the public kanmoi (the giant irrigation tanks of
Ramnad). Is the level in your kanmoi low? Ask Raju about
it. But be sure that there are enough of you. Unless there
are forty to fifty clients from a village, he may not find the
job worth his while.
Govindarajan owns two oil pumpsets and an electric
one as well. His fee for hire of the electric set is the same
as Ramu’s. But he charges Rs.30 an hour for the use of
an oil pumpset. Unlike electricity, oil does not come free.
He is also able to sell water from his own wells The drought
.
has made him richer by Rs 70,000 this season.

There are other crucial factors common to these three
water lords. All own sizeable tracts of land, and have
access to a water source. And the extent of development
of Ramnad’s water markets is astounding.
The drinking water market doesn't lag behind. It
couldn’t, in this district. On an average, each person gets
between zero to six litres of water daily in most villages.
Privateers have grabbed a public tank bed at Sayalgudi Ramnad, and bring small
, That's less than half a bucket per villager for all purposes.
fleets of bullock carts to carry away water from there They even station a few of
In Ramnad town itself, the owner of a local bakery runs a
.
their people at the site to prevent anyone else from drawing water from the wells
dug in the tank bed. lucrative sideline, specialising in selling water to lodges
Two factors further favour Ramu in such deals. One, and hotels.
he has few overheads. As an agriculturist, he gets The ’water market’ at Sayalgudi is a spectacular sight.
electricity free. Two, a terribly low voltage is the norm here. At any given moment, ten to twelve ox-carts carrying huge
This leads to the pumpset running twice the number of barrels are drawing water from the public kanmoi for
hours it should, increasing Karuppannan’s burden and private sale. Privateers have dug new wells or deepened
Ramu's profits. Karuppannan owns less than an acre and existing ones in the bed of the public kanmoi. They charge
Rs. 2,000 is a huge sum for him. Another fanner, 30 paise a pot for the drinking water they draw from here.
Nagarajan, also paid Ramu Rs. 2,000 for water during the Others have set up bathing ghats in the kanmoi area.
season. ’And that,’ he points out, ‘was for a crop like chilli. The going rate is 50 paise for a bath. Locals in Sayalgudi
Paddy needs much more water.’ told me that the new collector of Ramnad, L. Krishnan,
Raju in Nallangudi charges Rs.30 per hour. That’s had come down to the town on their complaints. Fed up
rainfall anually. In some years, it can fall to around 650

with the racketeering, he got the local panchayat union to
take over the bathing ghats. This worked.
mm or less.
Then, a week later, the water lords proclaimed they
Ramnad has always had one of the highest levels of
long-term migration. As in Pudukkottai, the sex ratio is
‘owned’ wells within the public tank in Sayalgudi.
Muthuchellan, Arunachalam and Sivalingam between
—
favourable to women contrary to the state and national
trends. This is not because women here enjoy a higher
them ‘own’ thirteen ‘private’ wells sunk in the tank bed.
status, but due to drought- driven migration. The failure
There is a giant water market here,’ says R. Karunanidhi,
of agriculture sees large numbers of adult males seeking
a Tamil Nadu Kisan Sabha leader fighting the racket. At
work outside the district.
just 30 paise a pot and at a modest rate of 500 pots a day
Then there is the landlord-cum-water lord selling
per well, these three clean up around Rs.60,000 a month.
water to neighbouring small farmers. He may and often
The water lords are often people with some political links.
does decide to hold it back at crucial moments, crippling
But the more important ‘market’ in the long run is, of
those who have based their season's calculations on
course, the invisible one in the villages. The market in
getting that water. This can mire them in debt and, over
which people like Ramu and Govindrajan operate.
time, result in their losing land to the landlord.
In the harijan hamlet of Etivayal, there is not one tap,
The creeping privatisation of water resources is going
no piped sources, and only salt water in the well. To top it
to end up dispossessing the peasantry in more ways than
all, a minor official of the water board sells residents
one.
drinking water at 20 paise per pot. How does he get that
water? By diverting some of the supply bound for Ramnad
One answer, as the collector well knows, is going in
town. When I reached Etivayal, the official was away,
for community borewells rather than private ones. But
Krishnan also knows that the problem doesn’t end there.
offering prayers at a distant temple. The villagers went
‘Every administration tries to reach assets like community
without water for the day.
borewells to the weakest sections,’ he says. ‘And the
‘We go to Saveriarpattinam and Mahidi for drinking
water,’ says V. Nagarajan of Keelathooval. ‘And across that
moment we sink one in, say, a scheduled caste hamlet,
what happens? There are half-a-dozen vested interests in
distance, you can't carry more than one pot at a time.’ A
the village out to damage that well. It affects their profits
woman here spends up to four hours each day, maybe
and dominance. We really have to educate people on the
more, just looking for water during the summer months.
value of this asset so that they defend and maintain it
And the implications of the water crisis do not end there.
properly and well.’
Kalahandi district in Orissa is often held up as a sort
of symbol of drought. Kalahandi’s annual rainfall has
been, on an average, 1,250 mm. The lowest rainfall
Kalahandi has had in the past twenty years is 978 mm. In
Ramnad, that would be considered a rare bounty. ‘Normal’
rainfall here would be around 827 mm. Right through the
'80s, the district actually averaged less than 720 mm
of
of Tamil Nadu, the area dependent on rain-fed

irrigation
The water lords of Ramnad - 2 averages only 38 per cent. Ramnad’s traditional irrigation
system is its lifeline. But it is a lifeline in crisis.

Most of the tanks desperately need repairs. But as one
senior official here put it, ‘The funds allotted for the upkeep
of tanks are less than 40 per cent of what is needed.
So
RAMNAD (Tamil Nadu): Ramanathapuram's image as ‘The only very important repairs are carried out in specific
Land of Tanks’ goes back in history. The ancients clearly cases. With the available funds, it is not possible to carry
knew that if the region was to survive, then proper out repairs on the supply channels feeding the tanks.
management of its water resources was essential. Though strapped for funds, the Public Works Department
In the old Ramnad, which included the present-day
(PWD) has tried hard to keep the tanks going.
districts of Pasumpon and Kamrajar, there were
over So far as drinking water goes, desalination of sea water
6,000 ancient tanks. There are 1,841 in Ramnad now, has proved technologically feasible. The collector,
some over a millennium old. L.Krishnan, is justifiably optimistic about this option. The
The giant ‘Ramnad big tank’ has a capacity of over 618 cost factor is not yet right, though. Besides, this needs
million cubic feet with a free catchment area of over investments in an era when governments are
8.24 l ar ge
square miles. No one seems to know exactly how old it is, spending less. And it could run into problems if the costs
not even the gazetteer. The Vaigai river empties itself
into are passed on to a public already fed up with having to
this tank.
buy water from privateers at absurd prices.
The Raj asinghamangalam tank in Tiruvadanai taluk Plain political neglect and a failure to see the outcome
is huge. It has a thirteen-mile -long bund and irrigates for Ramnad of projects like the Vaigai dam have worsened
4,500 acres. the agony of this district. The coming of the Vaigai dam
The great tanks of Ramnad were, interestingly, (from the ’50s) in the Madurai area actually reduced the
constructed in series. This means the surplus water
inflow of that river into Ramnad.
escaping from one tank goes via channels to feed other ‘We have our own internal Cauvery-type dispute right
tanks lower down the line, and so on. So, within limits,
here within Tamil Nadu,’ says one political activist. ‘The
deficient tanks are fed by surplus ones. blame for Ramnad’s water
lack of will at the top is to
It isn't as if the ancient Tamil kings
were filled with problems.’
altruism. As David Ludden, a scholar who studied
Meanwhile, with its huge 265 km coastline, Ramnad
irrigation methods spanning two millennia in Tamil Nadu,
does have a large groundwater potential. But wells are
puts it: ‘Rich peasants dug wells, chiefs built tanks and already being sunk in the range of 150 metres and deeper.
kings built dams.’ But there was, at least, a concept of
Officials say that, unlike the rest of Tamil Nadu, Ramnad
rational use of water, a clear idea of water harvesting.
has not grossly over-exploited its groundwater resources.
To this day, close to 90 per cent of irrigated area here In fact, it has made use of less than a third of its
depends for water on the 1 ,841 ancient tanks. For the rest supposed reserves. Yet, the fact remains that the wells are
going deeper, costs are going higher

and villagers
increasingly complain of upu thaneer
(salt-water).
One study in Ramnad compared the Searching for water in Pudukkottai - 1
levels of
forty-nine wells in June 1992 with those
obtaining in the
same wells in June 1990. It showed that water levels had
improved by a pathetic 0.23 per cent in
just ten of the
wells. In the remaining thirty-nine,
they had stagnated or PUDUKKOTTAI (Tamil Nadu): It was a swift, silent raid,
declined. launched under cover of darkness as the train crept into
At the Tamil Nadu level, of 1,793 wells Pudukkottai railway station at 2:30 a.m. The passengers
surveyed, only
1.65 per cent showed minor increases. remained asleep. I was pinned back in the corridor with
The implications
for groundwater in the long run
are not encouraging. my knapsack. A befuddled security guard who had been
It is in agriculture
that the problem hits hardest dozing, leaning against his rifle, looked on helplessly as
thanks to governmental neglect spanning the men swarmed on board. They were armed with pots,
decades A
techno-economic survey of Ramnad in 1973 buckets and jerry cans.
concluded
that its ancient tanks were essential
to the district. It And all they wanted was water.
advised that ‘repairs to them should
be taken up This they obtained by emptying the toilet tanks with
immediately’. Twenty years later, with
shrinking funds, practised ease. A couple of minutes later, I was alone on
many of those repairs are yet to begin. the platform. They were gone. So was most of the train’s
A visit to the ‘Ramnad big tank’ brings home the water.
last
aspect of the ‘water markets'. A private Scarcity has promoted a thriving water market in this
merchant has
acquired rights through an official tender— district of 1 .3 million people. This operates in terms of both
at a cost of less
—
than Rs 2 lakhs to catch fish in the
great tank. This he irrigation and drinking water. Right here, in Pudukkottai
does for a season ofjust thirty days, during town, you can witness all-night searches for water at many
which he earns
anything from Rs. 12 lakhs to 20 lakhs.
On the whole, the points. In the villages, no one gets more than ten litres of
Pandyas and Cholas had better uses for tanks
and water. water daily. That’s the average on the good days and ten —
litres won't fill one standard sized bucket. Often, it falls to
six litres and on some days to nil. Compare that with the
daily average of 220 litres each resident of Delhi gets. That
figure is 1 90 in Calcutta, 1 55 in Bombay and 70 in Madras
A few days after that curious welcome at the
Pudukkottai town railway station, I arrive in
Gandarvakkottai. The police has just moved in on the
drought- stricken block. They are herding hundreds of
angry villagers into the panchayat union office for talks.
The villagers have been picketing all bus and lorry traffic
in their area. ‘How else can we get MLA MP

them to pay any fc
no water. What agriculture can we have?* No or
attention to the water crisis?’ ask the protesters.
seems to have been to any of these places.
Drought here means much more than a lack of Pudukkottai has had a fine total literacy campaign
drinking water. It shatters income and livelihood
in a (TLC). It has seen the most successful drive in the 9 to 45
region where irrigation is heavily dependent on
thousands age group in any district of the south outside of Kerala.
of rain-fed tanks, some of them centuries
old. The area Leading that drive was the remarkable Arivoli Iyakkam
irrigated by canals and wells together
(approximately (Light of Knowledge Movement). This is a government
22,000 hectares) is about one -fourth of that irrigated
by sponsored body of which the collector is the president. Yet,
the rain-fed tanks (over 82,000 hectares).
‘Rain-fed’ means Arivoli draws huge numbers of dedicated volunteers from
being at the mercy of a monsoon that has
but
failed all diverse sections of society.
once during the past ten years.
At an Arivoli meeting in one block, we get to know of
Lack of water spurs the huge migrations of human
the damage water scarcity can inflict on even the literacy
beings that occur each year in this least urbanised
of Tamil drive. Many activists report that the survey for the
Nadu’s districts. I find whole colonies of deserted
houses post-literacy campaign (PLC) in their villages is a mess.
in rural Gandarvakkottai. In the Tulakampatti Worst hit are places
hamlet, for Mass migrations have hurt it badly.
instance, over 160 of 200 families have left their Gandarvakkottai. This
homes. like Sangamvidudhi and Palaya
Most have gone to neighbouring Thanjavur district, one
of will cause long delays in the PLC. More worrying still, the
the richest in the state. Many will return only months later. time lag could hurt the neo -literates, causing many of
walking past rows of houses without a single
It is eerie
them to slide back into illiteracy.
occupant. The only human being I do spot in the
lifeless The trend in Tulakampatti is causing Arivoli activists
lanes is Vijaya, twenty-four, an agricultural
worker. She a good deal of worry. There, migrant workers are taking
has just come down for a day from Thanjavur to see if the
their children along with them to Thanjavur. Earlier, they
family hut is still in one piece. One of many poor
Kuravurs would leave them with elders in the village. ’This means,’
(a denotified tribe) in this colony, Vijaya
feels they have no says one activist, ‘that a whole section of these young ones
choice but to live this way. Many Muthurajas (a
most will not only miss the net of the literacy drive but may
backward have also left Tulakampatti.
caste),
never see the inside of a school.' If it keeps up,
’It's seasonal,’ shrugs one official
at the block level, Tulakampatti could have a next generation of hard-core
making it sound as simple as tourism. But Kaliamurthy, non-starters and illiterates.
forty-six, a Kuravur who has stayed behind
in the hamlet, There is another long-term effect that persistent water
describes the crisis in one word: ‘Water.’ And that
scarcity has had here. is its role in the loss of
In three other villages of the same block that In many development
parts, the
I land by the peasants.
visit—Periakkottai, Ulavaigal and Kovilpatti—people
in the process has hurt poor people. For instance, the coming of
18-45 age group are invisible. In many cases, their
families borewells some years ago meant that the small farmers of
do not really know where they have gone. They only know
the Muthuraja colony of Kovilpatti lost most of their lands.
they have gone out looking for work because ’here there
is The borewell owners were richer and higher caste farmers
of the next hamlet. And they used their new weapon to

deadly effect. ‘We are migrating to West Thanjavur for now,' says
As Dr K. Nagraj of the Madras Institute of Development Mahamayee, fifty, a harijan from Saveriapatti village. ‘We
Studies puts it: The man controlling groundwater have no water, no roads and the upper castes don’t allow
becomes extremely important. He sinks the borewells. He us even drinking water. They say go get it from the officials.
has the resources and the bank contacts.’ Sometimes, we spend the whole day searching for water,
In Kovilpatti, many things happened once the being chased away from one tap or well or another. The
borewells appeared. The first effect was the drying of the pumps are under repair for ever.'
traditional dug- wells of the small farmers. The next step Even where the block development officer is well
was for the borewell owners to sell water to these farmers, meaning, as in Gandarvakkottai, he is often helpless. He
or to deny it to them at crucial moments, ravaging their has few resources at his command. For even minor
crop and often entrapping them in debt as a consequence repairs, he has to go through an ‘approved list of
The third step was to demand a part of their produce. The contractors’. Some of the ’approved’ ones can take months
fourth was to dictate what they would produce. The fifth to fulfil a trivial task.
was to move from exploiting their Lack of water touches every aspect of life in
dependence on water to
acquiring their lands. Pudukkottai.From health and education to industry, the
Govindarajan, fifty-six, of Kovilpatti, recalls the time literacy drive, debt —
repayment and land all feel its effects.
when many of the Muthuraja families owned up to three Now, under drought, it spurs mass migrations.
acres of land each; even more. Now, those who hold any
land at all, own a third of an acre or less. The villagers lost
most than forty acres to the bigger farmers, says
Govindarajan. ‘Now, we have no borewells and no water.
It made all the difference.’
This is a bit of an oversimplification. A farcical land

reform and unviable land units are also big factors. Yet,
water or the lack of it deeply influences the lives of lakhs
of people in this district. If you’re looking for a link between
control of water resources and poverty, Pudukkottai and
Ramnad next door provide stark examples.
Water is also a major element in caste and other
disputes. The plight of the harijan colonies deepens in this
season. The upper castes, who restrict their access to
water at the best of times, shut it off completely when there
is a drought. So quite a few of the Gandarvakkottai
protesters are harijans.
The Tamil Nadu government too has not declared the

Searching for water in Pudukkottai - 2 as drought-affected. That could mean waiving land
district
revenues and other dues. It feels this would be a ‘bad
example’, one that could prove expensive for the state.
Demands from a wide spectrum of political forces have left
both Centre and state unmoved.
PUDUKKOTTAI (Tamil Nadu): The car keeps circling Apparently, it costs too much.
around the village of Thachankuruchi. We do not know
There is no spate of deaths or raging disease here. And
whose it is, but the villagers do. They are telling us of how
perhaps because so much of Pudukkottai's pain is silent
the drought has wrecked their fragile economy,
when the and hidden it has drawn no attention from both
car draws up close. In it is an agent of the
Pudukkottai government and press. A minister represents this sparsely
Central Co-operative Bank. We are standing outside
one endowed district in the legislature, but it wields little clout
of the more affluent dwellings of the place, and that
in the state capital. And invisible agony doesn't make
interests him. He drives past us three or four times,
eyeing headlines. ‘Does the crisis here have to descend into a
the jeep a friend has brought me in. He is
wondering, catastrophe to merit attention?’ asks one official. ‘Would
perhaps, if it is an asset he can seize as part of his
dues that not be a great tragedy?’
recovery crusade.
‘They are worried about losses to the state
It is the middle of May and the drought
is biting hard. government,* says Chokka Radhakrishna, who heads the
In block after block people are unable to pay their
dues to primary school teachers' association here. ‘But they just
a variety of creditors.
do not worry about the losses to the people of Pudukkottai.’
Pudukkottai district as a whole is not under the Those losses are very real and the drought has left
drought-prone areas programme (DPAP) run by the central
thousands of peasants unable to repay their debts. It has
government. This is a district that often gets less than 800
also pushed them further into the grip of private
mm of rainfall annually. could end a bad year like this
It
moneylenders. This is at its worst in the harijan colonies.
one with less than 600 mm. Some districts in the north The water crisis also sparks off peculiar disputes
and east get much heavier rainfall, but have every block within the poor. In Mannavellanpatti of Annavasal block,
under DPAP. The logic is baffling. Unless, of course, the quarry workers are in conflict with the villagers. Quarries
placing of blocks under DPAP is purely a political decision. tend to retain water very well. Last December’s rains filled
The Centre has brought only four of Pudukkottai’s
thirteen blocks under the DPAP. It seems wary of the
the —
Annavasal quarry which now resembles a
costs medium- sized lake. The quarry workers need to drain it to
involved in such schemes. More so in a district where
well get back to work. The villagers feel that would rob them of
over 40 per cent of the people live way below the official
drinking water. Both are from the same poor class
poverty line. As one senior official puts it, The idea that
backgrounds.
the drought will respect administrative maps and confine
Top officials warned the state government as early as
itself to four blocks is laughable.'
February of the crisis that was looming. The district has
an active and energetic collector, Anuradha Khati Rajivan.

And she is doing her best under bad conditions. In that
sense, this district has been lucky. The poor here still Surguja’s politics of drought
speak with awe of their last collector, Sheela Rani & death - 1
Chunkath.
But, as one senior official with many years in the
district put it: The problems lie with the development
process as a whole and with the politics spurring that
process. These go back decades, keeping Pudukkottai poor RAMESHWARNAGAR, Surguja (M.P.): Did over sixty
and backward.’ people really die here in Surguja between February and
April? That too, of starvation, cholera and poverty-related
Khati Rajivan does not believe the water problem is
beyond solution. She is confident of tapping diseases? Did this have a good deal to do with the
’a
‘drought’? If true, what’s being done about it? If not true,
groundwater belt that we are sitting on'. ‘We’ve done some
groundwater mapping and we believe there is good how do such stories build up and why?
potential. She has seen the negative effects that private
The press is full of it. Cholera seems the chosen villain.
It conjures just that right vision of horror. More mundane
borewells had early on and says that the government will
now promote ‘community borewells’. To be effective, causes won't do. Yet, is the drama running in the press
the same as the one on the ground?
though, these would have to be at least 150 feet deep. They
might even have to reach 300 feet in depth. That costs Most of the press reports come out of Bilaspur and
Raipur. Some have appeared in Bhopal. To the extent that
money. But there is little doubt that the development of
reporters have visited this district, they appear mostly to
‘community water resources’ is essential.
have gone to the headquarters at Ambikapur and perhaps
Khati Rajivan also pins her hopes on a World
Bank -assisted project that would bring Cauvery waters to a couple of villages nearby. (There have been, however, one
or two major exceptions in the Hindi press. They have at
this district. That might solve at least the drinking water
least given the developments a context.)
problem of Pudukkottai town. She is quite sincere about
it. But governments in this region have an awful
Briefly,the reports say that thirteen people in
record in
Kantaroli and ten in Rameshwamagar villages of the
implementing such schemes.
The Veeranam project of 1969 is best remembered by Premnagar block starved to death in this period. They were
mainly poor Binjhwar tribals. The newspapers also report
the unused water pipes that still provide shelter for the
that in Matringa village of Udaipur block, thirteen
destitute in Madras. The Telugu Ganga project of 1983 is
nowhere in sight. The first proposal to bring Cauveiy Majhwar tribals have died of cholera.
Press reports have named as many as twenty-five
waters to Pudukkottai, according to the district’s
Pahadi Korwa tribals who starved to death in Bansajaal
gazetteer, ‘was made Now, 156 years later, it
in 1837’.
village of Batauli block in the same period. The sarpaneh
remains a proposal. The drought, however, remains a
there confirmed this list. Earlier, a study by a Sagar
reality.
University researcher revealed very low haemoglobin levels takes the focus off the real problems.
(8 gm per cent) in the tribals of Bansajaal. On the whole,
though, the favoured cause for most of the deaths in • In Bansajaal (pop: 1,441), the total number of deaths
Surguja is cholera. The press in Bhopal, over twenty-four from all, including natural causes, during the
hours away by rail and road, is full of that theory. If it were February-April period, turned out to be eight. This,
not for these events, Surguja would not get written about against the reported figure of twenty-five.
at all. It remains invisible in the press for long periods of
time. So maybe ‘cholera’ helps, after all. • On joint examination of the village kotwar’s records, the
Curiously, for all lashing out at faceless
their sarpanch admitted this was the case. He modified his
bureaucrats and their negligence, most of the reports seem figure of twenty-five deaths to eighteen. This, he now
shy of a debate on the public health system. There is no clarified, was over a fifteen-month period beginning
picture of that system as it functions in Surguja. Why is February 1993. Finally, eighteen turned out to be the
it the way it is? Why did it fail here? What kind of funds
total number of deaths in that period—from all
does it need? Why
are there so many PHCs with no causes —in the village.
doctors? Why do these things happen to Surguja each
year? What is the water ‘crisis’ here about? • Some villagers challenged the sarpanch’s version of
In Bijakura village of Wadroffnagar, notorious for the
their relatives’ deaths in front of him. The sarpanch,
starvation deaths of 1992, crisis is just around the comer.
unsurprisingly, is up for re-election in Madhya
Rameshwamagar village seems set for disaster. As the Pradesh’s panchayat polls starting on May 22. That list
summer sets in, Surguja, known for drought-related of deaths came up just in time for the early phase of his
deaths, braces itself for more of the same. Some of these
campaign.
deaths have been the subject of heated debate in the state
assembly.
• Deaths did really occur in these villages. There were six
I spent twenty days in the affected area, meeting the
in Kantaroli, six in Rameshwamagar seven in Matringa
families of victims and their neighbours, officials and ,
medical staff. Here’s what came out of it:

and eight in Bansajaal. They seem to have followed an
outbreak of measles and gastro-enteritis. Dr Akhand of
Surajpur came down to the Udaipur Public Health
• In every one of these villages, malnutrition is the norm.
Centre (PHC) following the Matringa deaths. He says:
Conditions here are appalling and there is great
‘The gastro-enteritis need not have proved fatal. But
distress. Many of the deaths were due to poverty- related
these people suffered from malnourishment. They
causes and a lack of infrastructure. However, both the
lacked resistance. Hence, they were much more
number of deaths and their causes have been vulnerable to disease.’
—
exaggerated by almost a factor of three to one. Facts
have been liberally spiced with political fiction. While
this has ensured some relief of a temporary sort, it sadly
•
‘Besides, they had to drink water from the filthiest
nullah since the village did not have a handpump or against measles. The health services directorate feels that
well at the time. You can’t solve this without tackling measles, coming on top of malnourishment and dysentery,
malnourishment and the water problem.’ He finds any proved fatal.
talk of cholera absurd. Most of those who died at Matringa had fever for five
to ten days. ‘Cholera would have proved fatal much faster,'
• Health services in all these villages are mostly says Dr Mangeshwar of the Udaipur PHC. And relatives
non-existent. Officials suspended some village health said that none of the victims had the projectile vomiting
—
workers for not functioning after the deaths. The linked with the disease. Almost all the victims at Matringa
ill-equipped PHCs are in charge of huge areas. And some were under six. ‘It seems says Dr Akhand, ‘that
unlikely,’
of these go for months at a stretch with no doctors. The cholera could restrict itself to the children without
Premnagar PHC alone covers forty- seven villages of touching adults.' The measles factor would explain the
which thirty* seven are out of reach during the monsoon. high number of child deaths.
At other times, you have to walk five kilometres in very But why exaggerate what is anyway a frightening
difficult terrain to reach them. Lack of irrigation water problem? One sarpanch gave me a frank reply. ‘Unless we
has crippled the peasants economically. The quality of have news of people dying like flies, we won’t get a single
drinking water has hurt them physically. handpump.’ A shiny new handpump in his village reflects
the proof of his point. A top official from Bhopal put it this
• However, the spotlight is offthese basic issues. The way: 'These are the weapons of the weak.' That seems true.
trend is to favour more spectacular causes like cholera. But at the district level, other political factors also intrude.
Or even, in one case, arsenic in the water. And then The real problems here could prove disastrous fairly
there is the recurring and genuine fear of drought. soon, but discussion of these has given way to more
dramatic explanations and events. This is the season of
Drinking water sources here are stagnating badly. So the sensational death. In Surguja, it usually is.
cholera can surely resurface in Surguja. But there is not
a shred of evidence proving it to be the cause of death at
Matringa. There was no bacteriological test done. The
facilities for that simply do not exist in the area. Many of
the symptoms were not consistent with those of cholera.
And the reports citing cholera quote no medical source,
official or independent, explaining how they arrived at this
conclusion.
The last time Madhya Pradesh saw a notification of
cholera was in 1992. And that was in the capital city of
Bhopal! But in Matringa, the story was quite different.
Most children in this region have not been inoculated
official. ‘His trip here meant that millions of rupees were

Surguja’s politics of drought and spent and roads were laid. Not for the villagers but for the
VIPs.’ Nothing changed, though. The next year, when a
death - 2 miserable Rewai Pando himself died, the state was under
President's rule. This allowed the BJP to ‘retaliate’. An
embarrassed Congress remained silent. Now, in 1994, the
deaths have occurred under Congress rule and the BJP is
RAMESHWARNAGAR, Surguja (M.P): With its enormous pushing the issue. This has produced some ministerial
spread of 23,000 sq. km, the district of Surguja in Madhya visits. To Matringa, for instance. Declarations have been
Pradesh is larger than the states of Delhi, Goa and issued, some officials suspended and enquiries ordered.
Nagaland. Its social Indicators, though, appear to be a But there is to be no prime ministerial visit, though the
century behind those of the southern state. Right now, deaths outnumber those of 1992.
Surguja is in the news for poverty-related deaths between The situation in the villages remains largely the same.
Februaiy and April ’94. A couple of handpumps installed to mark the ministerial
The processes leading up to those deaths were crucial. visits are the only real difference. Why the villagers
But immediate political considerations have obscured all exaggerate the numbers of deaths and their causes now
that. ‘Here, all deaths are political,’ says a senior official. seems quite clear. They seem to sense that controversy is
There were over twenty deaths in Kantaroli,
the best bet for relief.
Rameshwamagar, Matringa and Bansajaal. They, too, Hence the willingness to go along with raising
appear to have fallen into that slot. twenty-odd deaths to over sixty, citing cholera and other
In 1992, when the BJP ruled Madhya Pradesh, dramatic causes. This brings some gains, but has bad
Wadroffnagar shook the state. Some members of the effects, too. It shifts the focus from infrastructures and
family of Rewai Pando, a pathetically poor tribal, died of policies to relief. Many sarpanchas, patwaris and patels
starvation in Bijakura village there. The Congress prefer the relief mode. It means money for them. Some of
launched a crusade on the issue. Three former chief the Toads' laid for the ministers lie incomplete or
ministers visited the place. The present chief minister, abandoned. The water problem remains acute.
—
Digvijay Singh who was then PCC chief—went on a Yet, for all the talk of drought, Surguja has no great
protest fast close to Bijakura. rainfall problem. It has a major water problem. That is
Prime Minister Narasimha Rao also went to the area, because water harvesting systems Eire non-existent. Only
though not to the actual village. His visit, with many around four per cent of the district is under irrigation. Over
ministers in tow, still draws adverse comment. The the decades, Surguja has had an annual average rainfall
suicide or starvation deaths of eighty weavers of of close to 1 ,500 mm, which is excellent.
Pochampally in his home state of Andhra Pradesh In reality, crores of rupees have been spent on fighting
produced no such sympathetic visit,’ points out one ‘drought’ in this district. That means drought relief. And
that means racketeering. For years, the PWD, forest and
362 Everybody Loves a Good Drought Everybody Loves a Good Drought 363
other departments have wreaked havoc in the name of

—
drought arguably the biggest ‘industry' in Surguja.
‘Drought’ has made the district a contractor’s dream.
The last five years were ‘the worst ones’ for rain, but
even with massive deforestation and a falling water table,
rainfall has not been less than 1 ,200 mmin any year. That
still places it far above other drought- prone
districts in the
country. In 1991-92, it got 1,500 rmn. Pudukkottai or
Ramnad in Tamil Nadu, inmany years, get as little as half
of that. The difference is, both harness their poor
resources better. Oddly, with all its drawbacks, Surguja’s
per capita foodgrain output rivals the national average of
173 kg. Which means that if managed properly, this
district could really be turned around.
While being home to many of India’s poorest citizens,
—
Surguja enriches the revenue kitty it coughs up more
than Rs. 240 crores. (About Rs. 100 crore in coal royalty
alone.) The state investment in Surguja is far less. Both
state and central expenditure together barely equal
Surguja’s revenue contribution. The district has had little
presence in successive ministries. Its few representatives
have been unable to articulate its real needs. There is no
rail link between the district and the state capital.
And
owing to its distance—it is more than 1 .000 km away from
—
Bhopal Surguja has mostly been forgotten.
Though crucial, these issues get sidelined. So do other
crucial ones. For instance, silent or invisible hunger that This young resident of Rameshwarnagar village had walked several kilometres to
that
lowers people s resistance to disease. Or low investment fetch drinking water Oddly enough, at one level, there is no shortage of
.
substance in the area * The fields of the villagers have been submerged by operations
in the social sector. So low that Premnagar has the lowest relating to the Rango dam .
literacy rate for any block in Madhya Pradesh just four

—
per cent. Its female literacy rate is 1.04 per cent. This is are a mystery to them. The village health workers
the block in which the Kantaroli and Rameshwarnagar themselves can barely read or write. Sometimes, people
deaths occurred. have swallowed chlorine tablets given for their matkas In .
Illiteracy is the biggest killer disease,’

many cases, relatives of patients have not pressed them
says one doctor.
‘Even to take vital tablets.’
if medicines do reach these villagers, the dosages
But that is not all. It is possible to die without a chance
of being treated. The Khenda

sub-PHC is responsible for
Matnnga. where some of the deaths drinking water problems are visible. Many water sources
took place. Khenda
“
pe rmai n ‘ doctor n also has no have gone bad and could cause more deaths. And the
.
-
compounder, no deaths that did occur owed much to malnourishment
female health worker and no auxIlLy
midwife even after the deaths. nurse causing a lack of resistance in the victims.
For thref montta
preceding the deaths there was But the focus is on the spectacular. The long-term
no doctor at all The trends that spell chaos don’t make good copy. ‘The
6 aPPOln ee haS JUS ‘ tWen,y days “ore
Some
ome do«„
doctors make o rounds to serve. spectacular offers better mileage. And it doesn't really
and some are into private
practice, neglecting their require you to address basic problems,' says one official.
work.
1 aSe ‘Welcome to Surguja’s politics of drought, death and
1116 VlCtimS See a doctor
before theY died. development.’
Often ?hi«
Ofte!! this was because the
village health worker
showed up and it was impossible never
neonte^
P
6
thCre
^^ ^ ^ Wh° l6 Batauli block
JUSt 1,250 SeP tran tablets
- ^
in this terrain for the ill
80,000 Postscript
S H feels
PHC
’
though
S the
i
a great need for them.
When these two stories appeared in the Times of India, I was in
Besides, the spread of the
^\“°
j.
houSoU
rdtaa
Sq Uare^;
households in this huge
A single village can he acroX
kUometres And sometimes, each
Jhabua district. Suddenly, the police were looking for me. At first,
Ibelieved the authorities were tossing out all journalists in the
Narmada submergence zone. Phone calls to Bhopal proved me
h M tS at,° P a se arate
P
-
£ hillock. This not only

wrong. The Madhya Pradesh chief minister, Digvijay Singh, had
nf H
of
68
development
1
^ ,
loglStlcs a nightmare, it
in Madhya Pradesh is
means the per unit cost seen the reports. He was going to Surguja and wanted to visit
higher than that of the very places described in the stories. As author of those
&ny other state in the country
reports, would go too? tagged along.
I I
ornery™
To ^
ial. service
Sta11 hand pump?' asks a block
the
the same number of
people with
We went to Matringa where the deaths had taken place. But
we also made a couple of unscheduled stops at points where the
andpumps,’ says a senior government
local administration had no idea he would visit. What he saw
official, ‘we have
to spend four times the
amount that Maharashtra does
since we need four pumps.’ ’ there had Singh truly appalled. In Barkela village an elderly
woman told him: ‘We have not seen rice on the PDS here for
thG BanS° dam has
the destroyed three years now.’ To his credit, Singh checked out and verified
°f P °°r Peasants » serves
thP
he rich district of Bilaspur landlords
-
of the reports for himself.
next door. For four years
m
peop e Rameshwamagar have
been living oifthe meagre
The same evening, a very angry Digvijay Singh acted.
He shuntedout twenty-four top and senior officials from
th
th^ThevT
•
7
recelved f° r What the dam
has done to
y face disaster after the next monsoon when
the
Surguja. Heading the list was the collector. That was the largest
ever transfer of its kind in Madhya Pradesh made at one time.
submergence is complete.
The state government then appointed a young IAS officer as the
No moves towards solving the district’s irrigation
and new collector. This was Prabir Krishna, highly thought of in
administrative circles.
He was part of a team of three IAS officers
set up to handle
huge district.
this
The government also suspended a few
medical and forest
Palamau —after the drought
personnel. It blacklisted some contractors too. Digvijay Singh set
up a committee headed by the
state’s chief technical examiner.
This was to study the quality of
infrastructural work undertaken
in Surguja during the past four years DALTONGANJ, Palamau (Bihar):Does Palamau have any
and submit a report in a
hundred days. These swift developments right to experience drought? That seems an odd question
galvanised the press
in Bhopal. Surguja
captured more space in the newspapers
in
to ask about a district that has seen some of the country’s
the next ten days than it had
in the past two years.
However, the worst droughts. But it is one that makes sense to many,
spate of editorials mostly endorsed
the chief minister’s actions. including top officials running Palamau.
Palamau gets as much as 1 ,200-1 ,230 mm of rain in
a normal year, which is pretty decent. In its worst year in
recent history, it received 630 mm. That’s more than what
a district like Ramnad in Tamil Nadu gets in some ‘normal*
years. Yet. drought causes far more devastation in
Palamau than in Ramnad.
As a senior official here points out: ‘There are many
places across the globe getting around 200 mm
yearly —
without erupting into unmanageable crisis.’
Anantpur district in Andhra Pradesh has worse rainfall
figures than Palamau's. There have been years when
Anantpur has got well below 500 mm of rain. However,
Anantpur seldom captures the headlines with
drought- disaster stories, the way Palamau often has over
the past three decades. The way Palamau did, for instance,
from late 1992 to the middle of 1993.
Many areas of India face droughts that do not turn
into famines or near- famine conditions. By one estimate,
an eighth of India’s land surface suffers aridity at any given
moment. But in Palamau, the distance between drought
and famine or near-famine conditions seems to be much
shorter. This means wrong decisions can extract very high
costs. A
mistake that could cause minor problems in
another place could lead to disaster here.
Besides getting more rainfall than many other Many of his assessments ring true. But other realities
districts,Palamau has been lucky in other ways as well. intrude. Bihar's irrigation budget has been shrinking and,
It has had a string of committed
senior administrators over at Rs. 120-odd crores, is less than a third of what it was
the years. From the time of K.S.Singh in
the ’60s, to the just five years ago. Of this amount, Rs.80 crores goes in
present dynamic young deputy commissioner,
Santosh establishment costs. This means that a state of eighty
Matthew.
has to make do with Rs.40 crores or Rs.5 per capita
milli on
A third, relatively positive aspect is that
despite the on irrigation. So there’s not going to be much money
ravages of deforestation, the district still
enjoys decent coming.
forest cover. Officially 40 per cent and,
unofficially, around Land-grab over the decades has removed the one
25 per cent. Compare that with Ramnad’s 1.06 per cent —
cushion of many poor people their land. For the landless,
forest cover. Then what is it that goes wrong with Palamau it’s worse. There is a large seasonal migration of
when crisis strikes?
agricultural labourers from Palamau each year, towards
Some of Palamau’s problems are extremely complex destinations ranging from eastern U.P. to Punjab. But the
and So administrators, however talented, often find
vast.
poorest do not seem to have even that option. Bondage,
themselves working more as crisis managers. ’We
are so semi-bondage or debt holds them back.
busy coping with problems,' a block level official
told me, For the primitive tribes, the effects of deforestation
that we seldom have time to approach
them with a have been disastrous. And those displaced by mining or
long-term perspective or any real planning.
When we ’development’ projects have neither land nor employment.
—
succeed in doing that who in Patna listens?’
Corruption at many levels punches holes in the relief
For all this, Palamau is a region of enormous
potential. efforts that follow a crisis. ‘Often,’ says a senior official,
And not just for its minerals, as many seem to think.
‘there is more money for relief than for development. That
Deputy commissioner Matthew is optimistic about the
suits a lot of people.’ It’s one reason why people here call
districts future. For him, the area of hope
‘We did a check out. At any one time, only
is agriculture. —
drought relief ‘teesrafasV the ‘third crop'. It reaps a rich
48 per cent of harvest for the local elites.
our cultivable land is really under cultivation.
The rest is Pudukkottai district of Tamil Nadu is also a zone of
fallow.’ Matthew is clear that, given the resources,
his aridity. Migrant peasants or odd-job seekers here do not
priority would be ’water harvesting’. Palamau is presently earn much more than those in Palamau. But when crisis
not equipped to conserve the water it receives. strikes, their chances of survival are higher. Tamil Nadu
Matthew wants much more done in that direction. has decent infrastructure, communication and transport
Besides, we need forestry to restore the
sponge effect to networks. It also has superior levels of literacy and
the land. That will help keep the streams live.
We also need schooling, more safety nets and better governance. When
a number of surface water -harvesting
structures. In crisis strikes in Palamau, the very poor, especially the
addition to the right kind of forestry, we need
horticulture tribals with their unique problems, take a battering.
to help fill the gaps. Guava, ber, amla,
these would help.’
papaya
" “ —
cultivating This year, a great effort on the part of the district
administration has seen the success of the maize
With
crop —crucial to the survival of the poor. But the following
rice crop hasn t been all that good. In village after village
across the district, where everyone acknowledged the
Their
success of the maize crop, they also told me: ‘It (the crisis
of late 1992) could happen again.’
‘The whole thing is tremendously fragile,’ a senior
official told me. ‘The maize crop keeps them going
for three
Own
months and the rice crop for two. Lac, mahua and tendu
leaves see them through another two months at the most.
Then for five months they have to really struggle. They
Weapons
migrate, live off roots, berries, anything they can gather.
So if crisis strikes in that period, we reach the famine stage
quite swiftly.'
Drought and famine in Palamau grab the headlines
because they are spectacular. But they are, still, events
that flow from a number of less spectacular processes,
as
political activist Narendra Chaubey points out.
Among
those are deforestation, land-grab and poor water
harvesting. Eroding infrastructure, shrinking funds
and
stagnating agriculture have made things worse. Growing
unemployment, decaying relief and distribution systems,
and rising corruption have not helped. A lack of
land
reform seems to be the large canvas on which the
other
factors fit in.
For real change,’ says Chaubey, ‘there has to be a
major land reform. That would include the distribution of
surplus holdings, and securing of the title to the land
of
the poor. We need to root out feudalism in
agriculture.
Besides, serious planning for both irrigation and
drinking
water, and for employment, is needed. Given
that,
Palamau can really prosper.'
When the poor fight back

G iven a chance, people

down. They may have
hit back
different
at the forces that hold
ways of doing this.
less effective than others. But fight back, they do. Wherever
them
Some
the literacy movement has taken root among women, they have
gone on to picket liquor shops. Yet, too often, covering the poor
for the media gets reduced to romanticising the role of saintly
individuals working among them.
Often, these heroes are from
the same class and urban backgrounds as the journalists
covering them. A latter-day version of the noble missionary
working among the heathen savages. Far more sophisticated,
perhaps, but not too different at some levels.
True, the linkages between local protests, outside
intervention, and mass consciousness are quite complex. For
instance, the actions of a good district collector can have great
impact. So can the mechanistic actions of a government. In
conventional terms, the story then becomes one about the
individual hero, or the government, preferably the former. If the
hero or heroine belongs to an NGO, that makes for an even better
story. It helps establish the journalist's 'independent' credentials
too.
however, the role of the people themselves tends
In all this,
to get obscured, as do the political trends shaping within them.
For their battles are most effective where they are organised.
One of the reasons the poorest districts are the way they are
is —the pathetic shape of organised political movements within
them. Were they better organised, they would have faced a lot
of problems more firmly. The poor would have wrested a better
deal much earlier.
Even allowing for their limitations, the role of the poor
themselves worth looking at. So is the
is trends
role of political
and activists who have sprung up within them. The literacy
movement has been most successful where such activists were
either directly from the people in a region or shaped by their
movements. People politically, culturally and class-wise close to
the poor and, importantly, who learned from them. Or even
village-based NGOs run on local will and not on the whims of

external funding agencies. A Success Carved in Stone
The movements to save forests in some districts have often
come directly from the poor. Again, the politically-minded among
them have often taken the lead. So have the anti-liquor agitations
come up within them. In the quarries of Pudukkottai, women from
the poorest sections have fought heroic battles. Again, organised PUDUKKOTTAI (Tamil Nadu): It’s forty- three degrees
action with a degree of political vision allowed them to capitalise Celsius in the shade. Only there's no shade. It's around
on a situation where others have failed. Sometimes, the ‘external’ forty degrees in Pudukkottai district. But down here, in
factor can be one as modest as a Bishwamber Dubey, strongly the stone quarries of Kudimianmalai, it's at least three
degrees hotter. Heat radiates from the stone, blinding light
critical of his own bhoodan movement. (See: Bhoodan
—the last
reflects off the surrounding rocks, while the sun blazes
believer, in the section Crime and No Punishment.) But Dubeyji
is no urban middle class hero. He belongs
to the people of
down to vaporise any remaining resistance your body may
Palamau. hold out.
Of the battles these stories record, some might end in failure. And then you notice that most of the women in the
Mainly because of the lack of sustained and organised quarry still stride around barefoot. And that they work
democratic politics in those areas. Yet, they also argue hope. with an attitude suggesting that here, they are the bosses.
People are not quite so passive. They revolt in many ways. And And, for once, they actually are.
as long as that is the case, there is hope. Pudukkottai has 350 operational stone quarries. In a
radical move in 1991, about 170 of these were leased out
at nominal rates to extremely poor women from the
scheduled castes and the most backward castes. Leasing
them the quarriesmeant throwing out the old contractors.
The then district collector, Sheela Rani Chunkath
—
virtually a legend among the poor here pulled this off
under the Development of Women and Children in Rural
Areas (DWCRA) scheme. That’s a government- sponsored
anti-poverty programme.
The groups of women holding leases to the quarries
usually have twenty members. A few have more. (Almost
all registered themselves as societies and not as
cooperatives.) So over 4,000 very poor women now control
the quarries they toiled in as bonded or ill-paid labourers
—
before. Their husbands are in the same quarries as daily
wage workers. Wages depend on productivity, but all
376 Everybody Loves a Good Drought With Their Own Weapons 377
groups led by Palaniamma, Chintamani and Vasantha.

They keep their own accounts and do their banking
themselves. All have learned to read and write, thanks to
pudukkottai’s creative literacy movement, Arivoli
Iyakkam. The Arivoli has even held leadership training
sessions for the women. Both Palaniamma and
Chintamani are proud of their new skills and read aloud
news items on issues ranging from arrack to Somalia. All
the reports they read are from Thenrctl, a handwritten
newspaper for neo-literates put out by the Arivoli.
The women insist on hovering around their visitor with
umbrellas. They are anxious, doubtful of this urbanite's
ability to survive the next few hours in the heat of the
quarry. I have to plead that this is upsetting the light
reading on the cameras.
The work here is always hard,’ says Palaniamma.
(With my skin already on fire, it is not difficult to believe
that.) ‘Earlier,’ says she, ‘we were slaves of the contractor.
We made only Rs.6 for working from 6 a.m. to 2 p.m.’ At
present, they can earn Rs.35 to Rs.40 per day if the going
is good.
‘Now,’ says Chintamani, ‘our children eat more. They
go to school and we clothe them better. If they fall ill we
can afford some medicines.’ Chintamani is about to buy a
house. Palaniamma and Vasantha have already bought
The women in the quarries work with an attitude suggesting that here they are the theirs.
bosses. , .
,
And, for once they actually are Their husbands too are in the same With the women and not the men in control, points
—
quarries as daily wage workers.
out N. Kannammal. a leading Arivoli activist, family
members of a society share its profits equally.
spending patterns change. ‘Most of the money is spent on
The results have been startling. The living standards the families, not on arrack. The women have proved much
of the women and their families have improved very better at fighting poverty.’ Their husbands seem quite
quickly. Earlier, more than half of them were from the content with the situation.
poorest sections of harijans here. Revenues from quarrying are booming. All quarrying
At Kudimianmalai, one of the five DWCRA women-led is subject to a ’seigniorage’ fee —
the sum paid to the
quarries in Pudukkottai I visit, there are three women’s government on the amount of material quarried. It’s now
Everybody Loves a Good Drought With. Their Own Weapons 379
about Rs. 110 for a truckload of jelly. Under the old New drew up an excellent proposal
Education, Delhi, for
contractor regime, the state got very little. Most of
the that last year. yet to be implemented. When and if it
It is
quarrying was illegal but went on thanks to the connivance
is, making sure the women control the system will be
of many officials. The state once collected a seigniorage
fee crucial. The arbitrariness of petty officials here is
of Rs.525 in a whole year during the '80s!
alarming. Some go along with the DWCRA scheme only
In 1992, within a year of the women's groups
settling because two successive collectors have wanted it. They
in, things changed. The fee raked
in by the government have lost the ‘cuts’ they used to get under the old regime.
was Rs.25 lakhs. For 1993, the assistant director of mines, Under a new dispensation, many of these officials could
N. Shanmugavel. anticipates a collection of Rs.48 lakhs, turn hostile.
of which Rs.38 lakhs will be from the DWCRA
women’s Awhile ago, some contractors discovered a passion for
groups. This means that 106 other quarries,
run by the environment and for their architectural heritage. They
contractors, will contribute merely Rs. 10 lakhs.
‘The alleged that quarrying in the Kudimianmalai belt was
women’s groups,’ Shanmugavel says, are ‘infinitely more damaging an old temple in the area. The Geological Survey
productive, law-abiding and always regular
in their of India was called in. At one stage, experts placed
payments.’
thin-walled glass tumblers filled with water inside the
I ask the women why they
have registered their groups temple. Next, they simultaneously set off twenty blasts in
as societies. Why not as cooperatives? If we
did that,’ says the quarries, each with 150 gm of explosives. They then
one of them, we would then have to accept representatives
studied the effects of the blasts. There were no signs of
from the cooperative department. Worse, we’d have
to pay damage or stress anywhere in the temple. Nor did any dust
their salaries. One group that did form a cooperative had settle on the water Soon after, a court threw out a private
seven department employees foisted on it. The
group is complaint on the same issue.
now forking out about half its turnover to pay
their Now, the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) has filed
salaried.
its own complaint! No one here denies it is the ASI’s duty
Despite their record of success, the women’s to look after old monuments. But it does seem odd that
groups
are fighting for survival. A powerful
coalition stands the same ASI stayed silent for years while private
arrayed against them. Contractors done out of leases,
their contractors illegally worked the same quarries. The old
political patrons, and corrupt officials done out
of contractors used a lot more of explosives. The women can’t
kickbacks have hit back at the women. When the even afford them on that scale.
groups
were first formed, the contractors refused to allow The contractors have come up with another, more
trucks
entry to the areas. They even damaged the
approach roads dangerous ploy. They are forming fake DWCRA outfits as
to the quarries.
a way of sabotaging the women’s groups. In a district with
The women also need an independent marketing a large number of very poor people, this is not as difficult
system. Their survival could depend on breaking
the grip as it might seem. In these groups, the women appear to
of the contractors over the sale and distribution
of their be owners but are simply a front for the old contractor. In
stone. Dr. Nitya Rao of the National Institute
for Adult Sandhanavidudhi, a genuine group has been pushed out
of its quarry by a fake outfit acting at the contractor’s it:‘Why set poor against poor?’ Rather, the point was to get them
behest. The women are not pressing their case too hard, to assert themselves within their group and make it a genuine
though. Too many of the contractor's toughs live in the one. By using the same scheme as the others, they could
same villages as they do. become independent of the contractor.
The old regime has also moved through its political On the second front, petty officials were causing havoc. The
friends. There is tremendous pressure on the government best of government schemes are vulnerable in this way: when
to scrap the whole scheme when the leases come up for good officials at the top move out, good projects often suffer. At
renewal. But the balance sheets suggest that, if anything, the village level, this means the women have faced threats and
the experiment here is worth emulating across the even coercion. The coalition against the quarry women is very
country. State revenues from the quarries have gone up much alive.
many times over. At the same time, the quality of life of Thirdly, some of the fallout from the literacy drive had
the women's families has improved. ‘What happens,’ I ask provoked the powerful. The anti-arrack stir of Pudukkottai’s
Palaniamma, ‘if the leases are not renewed?’ women, for instance. Layers of officialdom are now bitterly hostile
‘We are doing well and can do better with our own to Arivoli in this and other districts.
marketing system,’ she says. ‘In future, the state should The fourth battle is really complex. An official marketing
bypass middlemen and come to us for stone for scheme called the District Supply and Marketing Society (DSMS)
govemrpent construction projects. After having tasted did come up. It also caused great damage. The original idea was
freedom these years, how can we ever go back to the that such a body would facilitate the work of the women. Over
contractors? We will fight for renewal of the leases.' time, it tried instead to take over their rights and curb their
independence. Instead of working for the women, it seemed to
be working on behalf of the middlemen.
Postscript The tyranny of petty officials here could not quell the quarry
women. But it did seriously affect other DWCRA outfits. For
I returned to Fudukkottai in April 1 995, nearly two years after my example, the women’s gem-cutting units. A working venture was
first The women-led quarries had come under great
visit. made insolvent by the DSMS. When some women workers of
pressure but had held out. They had even scored major victories the DSMS itself were sacked. In one instance,
protested, they
in their battle for survival. They had taken major blows as well on units producing masala for ICDS centres were told they had to
four fronts. First, the old contractors continued to form fake buy chillies from only one particular retailer. The chillies were
DWCRA women’s groups. the long run, this cannot but
In sub-standard and the units had their produce rejected. They then
discredit the whole show. Arivoli once again came to the aid of lost many clients.
the women. Along with officials, began a sort of ‘census’ to find
it Through all this, the women of the quarries held out on their
out which were the fake groups. Also, to know which of the own. Only Arivoli was with them. Finally, their day came. The
genuine groups had been subverted by contractor pressure. chief minister, Jayalalitha, announced a five-year renewal of their
This was done with much sensitivity. The idea was not to leases a little after my second visit. They have much large battles
punish the women in the fake groups. As one Arivoli activist put ahead. But they have lit a candle. And what a candle it is.
on hooch. Consequently, the size and scope of this

Women versus arrack— industry are astonishing.
In Pudukkottai, Tamil Nadu's least urbanised district,
official data show that one arrack distiller is arrested every
forty-five minutes. One is convicted every two hours.
PUDUKKOTTAI (Tamil Nadu): Pursuing a story In a 150-day period for which figures were available,
on the there were, on an average, thirty-one raids and nineteen
links between arrack and poverty
wasn’t quite so simple
It took a couple of
days to catch up cases booked each day. About 420 litres of arrack was
with the appropriate
anti-arrack officials in Pudukkottai-they
were busy
— —
seized and half that destroyed every twenty- four hours.
auctioning brandy shops. Curiously, Fines alone in the 150-day period amounted to Rs.13
this is perfectly legal
in a state that has banned the lakhs. The amount of arrack seized in these raids was close
distillation of arrack.
The Tamil Nadu government’s concern to 65,000 litres.
over the sale of
illicit arrack is not totally ‘And if you believe these figures even begin to
all
selfless. Arrack affects excise
revenues collected on the sale of measure the reality,’ an experienced local advocate told
legal alcohol. For
instance, it hurts earnings from me, ‘you need to have your head examined. The high rate
Indian manufactured
foreign liquor (IMFL)—sold to of convictions occurs because the distillers rarely contest
private outlets through state
marketing agencies. (People here call the charge. Why waste days in court when the same time
the IMFL outlets
brandy shops’.) can be used to make more money from arrack? Since the
So the same officials
convictions only lead to fines and not imprisonment, they
entrusted with cracking down on
arrack and preaching its evils to the gladly pay the fines.’
public may also be
uty bound to enhance the sale of other The moment a case is brought to court, said the
varieties of liquor
They certainly have to fulfil higher advocate, the defence counsel says, ‘Yes, yes, my client
targets of excise
revenues each year. admits to everything.’ The fine is paid. ‘Eveiy rupee you
These ironies don’t go unnoticed. invest in arrack can bring you up to Rs 9 in return. So
At one public
meeting held to promote prohibition fines of a couple of thousand rupees don’t even scratch
here, a DMK activist
embarrassed everybody. He got onto you mildly.’
the dais and
presented a leading revenue official Though it is illegal, village panchayats have been
with Rs.5. This, he
said was ‘a tribute to your fight auctioning the ‘right to distil’ arrack locally, since it is so
against the evils of
drinking while promoting brandy shops’. profitable. Their excuses for this can be interesting. In
Arrack seems a close companion of poverty more than one village, the ruling group assured me that
across t his
state, and not
just in Pudukkottai. Each year, the the money made from breaking the law would go towards
poor in
Tamil Nadu part with hundreds of crores building a temple.
of rupees to the
makers of illicit arrack. Countless Is it possible to make even a sketchy estimate of the
numbers of male
agricultural labourers spend much of industry’s turnover? That, too, in a poor district like this
their daily earnings
one? Take the Neduvasal village, for instance. Officials
confirmed that the panchayat here had auctioned the worth —which in Kilakuruchi means one-fifth of a glass.
‘right to distil’ for about Rs.3 lakhs. Many of the agricultural labourers did not see two to three
There are close to 500 village panchayats in glasses as heavy drinking. I clearly surprised them by
Pudukkottai. Even if only half of these were into such suggesting as much.
auctions, the lease amounts alone would total Rs.7.5 ‘Aheavy drinker,' said a senior excise official, ‘is not
crores annually. Not bad for a small district with necessarily one who has two glasses in the evening. He
a
population of 1.3 million. might have much less at one time, but will keep having
Experts here believe the number of panchayats into shots throughout the day. In the course of the day, he
this racket is really far higher. They also make might have up to five or six glasses in this manner.’
another
point. Even if we take the auction amount to be as The impact of arrack on the economy of the peasant
much
as a third of the turnover (though it is probably much less), households is devastating. In some cases, the male
we have Rs.22.5 crores for the villages alone. Throw in the agricultural labourers I spoke to were spending more than
towns and it is, at the very least, a Rs.30-crore business their day’s earnings (especially during a lean work period)
annually. And this, points out the local advocate, does not on arrack. That links arrack to debt. Quite a few said they
take into account the cuts that the police and officialdom were getting hooch on credit from the man running the
get. local arrack business. Most of them were earning daily
There is some heat just now on the distillers since the wages of Rs.12 to Rs.15, or, at best, Rs.20.
collector of Pudukkottai has been tough in implementing Besides, ‘if my husband spends so much on arrack',
the anti-arrack drive. That might even account for said Veliamma in Tiruvarankalam, ‘then we have to
the
spectacular figures of seizures and convictions. Still, the borrow to buy rice, no?’ A drinker in Kilakuruchi having
Problem is not merely an administrative one and its scale three glasses a day would be consuming more t han he
is massive. earned, Adiappan, an ex-alcoholic there, said. 'But you
I spoke to male agricultural workers on this subject can’t beat this racket,’ he felt. ‘There’s money in it for
in many villages
across several blocks. (Women consume everyone at all levels.’
very arrack by contrast.) Almost every single one
little There are also health problems. Swami Sivagnanam,
admitted to drinking arrack. If he could get it, he would the articulate assistant commissioner of excise there,
have it. spoke with disgust of how distillers throw all kinds of muck
had to spend four hours looking for work,' said
If I into the ‘product’, including ‘sulphate jelly from battery
one, ‘and if I find it, I have to work for 10-12 hours to earn cells, chillies, and even cow dung’. These help to ‘speed up
•Rs.12-15. After that I may have two glasses, no?’ There is the fermentation process. These fellows can’t wait, sir.
some embarrassment if you ask them why women, who They can’t wait even for one week. They must make
work even longer hours, don’t feel the same need. money.'
The price of arrack varies from village to village. In A doctor at the government hospital in Pudukkottai
Tulakampatti hamlet, it was Rs.2 per glass. In Kilakuruchi town, with much experience of arrack-related problems,
village, Rs.5 a glass. You can, however, buy just a said: ‘This stuff is full of chemicals. I see countless cases
rupee’s
of cirrhosis of the liver. Also, ulcers, cardiac problems and

neuritis, which know are related to this habit. Arrack is
a silent killer.'
I
Women versus arrack - 2
So what can done about this silent killer? The women
of rural Pudukkottai seem to be getting ready to answer
that one.
PUDUKKOTTAI (Tamil Nadu): She had only the children
with her at home when they broke open the door and
dragged her out. The women sent along by the ‘elders’ of
the Neduvasal village in Pudukkottai district beat her up,
snatched her mangalsutra and dragged her to the
panchayat. There she stood for several hours, till well past
midnight, while the ‘elders’ poured abuse and scorn on
her. That, they hoped, would teach her to preach against
arrack.
Meet Malarmani. The twenty- six-year-old could well
be the pioneer of an infant but potentially powerful
anti-arrack movement in the district. One with
implications for other parts of the state as well. The highly
successful total literacy drive here seems to have set in
motion forces that many may not have bargained for.
Leading the campaign is the remarkable Arivoli Iyakkam
(Light of Knowledge Movement), of which Malarmani is a
staunch volunteer.
In Thachankuruchi village of the barren
Gandarvakkottai block, local women, many of them active
in the Arivoli Iyakkam, decided they had had enough. The
village had become unsafe due to hi gh levels of alcoholism.
Worse still, the illicit arrack brewed locally drew devotees
all the way from Trichy, forty kilometres away.
That was before twenty-one -year-old Matilda sparked
off a move against arrack. Her drive, joined by other
women, resulted in Thachankuruchi banning the making
of arrack within its limits. ‘Now,’ she says, ‘the village is
clean.’ It might be hard to sustain, but the victory is
significant. feeling predates the literacy drive.But the movement has

Malarmani and Matilda see arrack as a symbol of given firm expression to that anger. Above all, it has given
backwardness. For both, it reeks of poverty and rural women the confidence to stand up and protest. (In
degeneracy. Most rural women here agree with them. With the literacy movement here, every block and panchayat
many male agricultural workers spending much of their has a woman convenor, apart from a male one.) During
daily earnings on hooch, this is an explosive issue. The the prohibition week, the Arivoli ran a campaign on the
more so when it affects what is, in this small district alone, dangers of arrack among its neo-literate audience. With
a multi-crore industry. that, the issue gained momentum.
Malarmani is paying a price for her stand. As the Soon, other villages began to ban alcohol distillation.
district collector had stood by her after the beating up It’s tempting to draw a parallel here with the anti-arrack
incident, the panchayat could not harm her directly. So movement in Andhra Pradesh, but there is one big
the arrack mafia in her village, helped by some policemen, difference. The protesters in Andhra wanted a government
enforced a social boycott of her family. ban on arrack. In Tamil Nadu there is already a ban in
The day I meet Malarmani, the barber in Neduvasal place. But it is so feeble that village communities are now
has turned away her two little sons. One son, who had enforcing their own bans. Matilda’s Thachankuruchi was
managed to buy his mother a cup of tea from a shop, had the first to impose one. That was on Christmas day last
it knocked out of his hand by a villager.
The ‘charges’ year. The village gave the distillers a week to pack up. ‘After
brought against Malarmani are many. One is about her that,’ she says, ‘all equipment relating to arrack
conduct during a ‘prohibition week' public meeting in distillation was confiscated and destroyed.’ The Andhra
February. There, say her critics, she ‘knowingly’ let parallel, however, holds good on literacy being a catalytic
harijans speak from the podium, using the same mike. factor.
That was a state-run prohibition week. So Malarmani Will local bans at the village level work? A top Arivoli
is being punished for implementing a government activist, Vivekanandan, says yes. ‘Distance and
programme. To buy provisions, she has to go to Avanam availability are major factors. If it can’t be got locally, it
village four kilometres away by bus. For water she has to makes a big d ifference.’ Vivekanandan ought to know. He
walk to the Kuruvadi village two kilometres away. Her is from the same village as Malarmani. And he also is being
husband, who was also beaten up, is now away, working victimised for his stand on that issue.
in Nagapattinam. ‘Besides,’ claims Lourdaswamy, headman of Matilda’s
‘I have seen for years what arrack does,’ says village, ‘if you have to go far off and drink, the “kick" wears
Malarmani. ‘The beatings it brings women, how it keeps off by the time you are back. Then such people even tend
people poor and ignorant, how it kills them.’ Then why did to beat their wives less and cause less nuisance.’ For all
she only act on it this year? ‘Because Arivoli gave me the zest the villagers show, the stand the government
confidence. Before, I would not have dared stand up like finally takes will be very important.
this.’ In village after village in rural Pudukkottai, one thing
Matilda in Thachankuruchi agrees. Anti-arrack is clear. Where the male labourer drinks heavily, the family
is mostly dependent on the earnings of the woman of the the same momentum, two things have changed. First, the
house. Separate interviews with the women give you more women have changed They might be on the defensive in periods
.
alarming figures of spending on arrack. Their figures tend where the lobby hits back or when faced with less sympathetic
to be more accurate, too. officials.But the drive against arrack is never off their mental
There is much hatred of the police, who, the women agenda. And it periodically re-emerges in physical terms.
say, are the driving force behind the business. *Once, one Secondly, they know and have proved that where a serious ban
distiller in our village agreed to give up,’ some women is in place, consumption levels are affected. And that earning
tell
me. ‘But the police started harassing him to resume levelsdo improve. So while the government of Tamil Nadu can
business because they were losing their cut.’ disrupt theirmovement, it simply won’t go away and is likely to
The women say they won’t suffer in silence any more. keep bouncing back. That this has begun to sink in is evident
But the arrack lobby is hitting back at them as hard as it from the hostility sections of the state government have since
can. In some villages, it will be very tough for the women shown towards the literacy movement and its activists.
to sustain their offensive. The boycott of Malarmani
has
become a major issue. The problem is larger than an
administrative or a law and order one. The
political- bur eaucratic network that arrack has nourished
is vast and all-pervasive. ‘Can you introduce
me to a big
distiller?’ I ask one self-confessed arrack
consumer.
Certainly, he says, only half in jest. ‘Let’s go call on the
MLA and minister immediately!’
Still, has changed things. The confidence it has
Arivoli
given the womenpromises big battles on the issue.
Malarmani and Matilda have set an example. People in
villages far off from their own have heard of and welcomed
their actions. The are even emulating them. The arrack
lobby has survived many governments. But in the poor,
neo-literate women of Pudukkottai, the lobby is finding
tougher opponents. And the battle's only just begun.
Postscript
The anti-liquor movement has had its ebbs and flows. While the
women’s ban on arrack spread to some villages, it also collapsed
in some of the original ones. Though it has proved hard to
sustain
Jhabhar seems to have set a trend. Nearly twenty-five

Van samitis & vanishing trees samitis have come up in Latehar, Chandwa and Balumath
blocks, too. And the van samitis of Palamau don’t stop at
just getting people to grow trees. They are also fighting
illegal felling and timber smuggling. Springing up from
within the villages, they show some signs of developing
LATEHAR, Palamau (Bihar): This was one forest officer
into a popular movement. But they will not be so easy to
who had missed the wood for the trees. He had no clue
sustain.
about developments in his own area of Latehar in
Palamau is notorious as a drought-prone district that
Palamau. As his van carrying stolen timber came around
the comer, it was waylaid by a group of villagers. They
has faced famine twice in twenty-five years. We know
belonged to the local van samiti or forest committee. Then-
much less about its environmental crisis. The destruction
of the forests is shattering lives, particularly those of very
raid saw the recovery of timber worth lakhs of rupees from
poor tribes like the Birhors, Asurs, and Kurwas. For them,
the officer. He is now facing departmental action.
the jungle is the great provider. Adivasis often depend on
‘The lives of the villagers depend on the forests.'
min or forest produce for up to 25 per cent of their food.
Mohammad Abbas Ansari, a van samiti member, tells me. dependence goes beyond 50 per
With some tribes, this
‘We will fight to stop their destruction.’ Palamau once
cent.
enjoyed great forest wealth. But large-scale illegal felling
During the last century, Palamau had nearly 90 per
and timber smuggling have devastated that resource. By
cent forest cover. Early this century, that fell to 70 per
the mid- 80s, Palamau’s poor saw the forests they so badly
cent. Today, officially, it is around 40 per cent. Off record,
needed vanishing. So they began doing something about
senior officials concede that forest cover may be just 25
it.
per cent. Drought has closely followed deforestation.
Close to ninety van samitis have sprung up across the
‘The forests were always the shock absorber,’ says
district.Of these, perhaps fifteen are very effective,’ says
S.K. Singh, the young and popular divisional forest officer
Santosh Matthew, Palamau’s deputy commissioner. ‘The
loss of forests means the loss of the sponge effect that
(DFO) based in Latehar. Singh’s own role is quite dynamic.
keeps the streams and rivers alive.’
He is also a realist. He feels that ’the rest of the groups With this region having perhaps the finest
need more experience, but most are very enthusiastic’.
concentration of sal trees anywhere, timber smuggling is
Enthusiastic seems the right word. The van samiti of
big business. ‘Good timber fetches from Rs.700 to Rs.800
a single village, Jhabhar, has overseen the planting of
per cubic foot,’ says DFO S.K. Singh, who is battling that
more than 60,000 trees. That’s pretty good going for this
trade. ‘An average tree can produce up to twenty cubic feet
village of less than 1,200 people in the Balumath
block.
of timber, a good tree up to forty cubic feet.’
And it has contributed to Jhabhar’s relative prosperity.
This means that ‘if you fell just four good trees and
Earnings from these efforts have funded a community hall,
smuggle out the timber, you can make over Rs.1.2 lakh
a water tank and the expansion of the school building.
on that deal alone. And the smugglers have strong
Everybody Loves a Good Drought Wtth Their Own Weapons 395
networks.'
profitable.’
Besides, says political activist Narendra Chaubey, Jhabhar’s villagers have found it so. 'An individual can
there s another line of profit. ‘The kattha from tne
Khairi earn Rs. 1 ,500 a year by planting trees,’ says Kailash Singh
tree goes into making pan masala. It sells at
Rs.300 per of the van samiti. 'We get 30 to 40 paise per tree, plus help
kilogram. So you can imagine the pressure.’
with seeds, plants or even, occasionally, a little fertiliser.'
The pressure is intensive and the networks extensive. The samiti tries to be humane. ‘When a villager builds
In Balumath, the ultra-left Maoist Commun ist
Centre a house,’ says Kailash Singh, ‘we examine the matter and
(MCC) extracts money from smugglers. The day I arrived
say, okay, he needs so much lakdl. After all, our building
in Balumath, the MCC killed the mukhiya of
a small material is wood. And the ranger allots the lakdi going by
village. A timber smuggler himself, he had
apparently the samiti’s estimate.'
grudged raising their cut when revenues went up.
So while Jhabhar profits from the sale of produce,
In tribal areas, mahajans (trader-moneylenders)
force there is less danger of deforestation here. The samiti
adivasis in their grip to cut trees. Unable to repay
their ensures that copsing and felling are controlled and
debts, the tribals have to cut and smuggle out timber
for phased. Fines levied on illegal felling raised Rs.2,500 last
their creditors. When caught, they take the rap. year. Yet, their effort has had its problems. For one thing,
While the poor face harassment, organised smugglers a large number of the trees planted are eucalyptus.
have less to fear. As one forest officer in Balumath tells ‘This was the craze in the early days,' explains Gobind
me: *We can confiscate the timber, the smuggler’s vehicle,
Singh of Jhalim village. ‘We we did not know then what a
and prosecute him. The cases drag on. In theory, they can monster this eucalyptus is. It drinks water from all
be jailed for six years, but they usually remain inside
for around, hurting the other trees. The trees bom of our own
less than a year.’
soil—khairi, sal, seesham, akasi, gumhar and many
Some years ago, Jhabhar’s villagers set up a youth others —are better.’
group, the Jagruk Naujavan Sabha. It took up the issues growing, though slowly. The early
That knowledge is
of migrant labour primary education, development
, and craze for eucalyptus was not accidental. Nor did people
environment. By 1985, this group had graduated into a
seek it only because it grew faster. For years, a strong
politically conscious outfit. In 1989, spurred
by the industrial lobby with influence in the forest department
realisation that the great forests around them
were plugged it consciously. Eucalyptus goes into roofing
disappearing, it formed Palamau’s first van samiti. With
materials, as a prop in mining activities and has other
S.K. Singh’s arrival in 1990, says Narendra
Chaubey, industrial uses. But S.K. Singh claims the craze is now
things really picked up. He encouraged and aided
the dying.
samitis.
‘Palamau's advantage,’ says Singh, ‘is that its forests
For Singh, it is quite simple: ’The villagers are the last are naturally regenerating. But they should be protected,
hope. How much of raiding villages and alienating people
allowed to grow.’ In the year before Singh arrived, not a
can one do? Even policing works better if the people are single hectare had come under afforestation. Last year, the
with you. We tried showing them that afforestation is forest department covered 400 hectares in its drive, apart
from woods revived by the. van samitis. Using different

varieties they grew around 2,500 saplings per acre,
at a Whose forest is it, anyway?
cost of Rs.3 per tree. They could cover more, but funds
are
shrinking.
The enemy is not just timber smuggling. Deforestation
inPalamau has pushed a perverse process. Contrary to
common belief, Palamau gets excellent rainfall in most NUAPADA (Orissa): The assistant conservator of forests
years. However, relentless felling has killed not only (ACF) was pleading with the villagers of Kendupatti, who
large
forests but also the streams and' rivers. And with so were preventing his men from laying a finger on the
many surrounding trees: ‘We’re here to help the trees. We’re only
people needing those forests for survival, the distance
between drought and famine in Palamau is much less than going to prune and cut a few branches so that the trees
in most other places. As Narendra Chaubey puts grow straighter and stronger.’
it: ‘The
poor here are also confronting serious causes of drought Picharu Sandh of the Jagrut Shramik Sanghatan,
femine. The great thing is that they have begun to among those guarding the trees, asked the ACF: ‘If we cut
fight to save their forests, and thereby themselves.’ off your hands, will you grow straighter and stronger?’
The battle over the Kendupatti woods had reached a
peak.
When the people of Kendupatti in Khariar block
decided in the mid-’80s to revive the dying forests around
them, they unknowingly invited one of the most curious
of possession disputes. By 1992, the experiment was a
huge success. They had nurtured forest across 140 acres
of land, with maybe half a million trees on it.
It was, says Picharu, too much of a success. ’The
department came and claimed the forest. Others too

started acting as if they owned this place. Actually, if not
for our villagers, not a single tree would have grown here.
The forest department, seeing how good our forest was,
simply appointed a guard to "look after it". What were they
looking after when there was just barren land here?’
At the heart of the dispute is not so much a fight over
credit for the achievement but a more sordid reason the —
sheer commercial value of the trees. ‘Basically these
people want to sell the trees,’ says Mohan Baug. ‘That’s all
—
these forest department people do anyway sell the timber
they are supposed to protect.’ The
forest department
admits that if the trees and forest exist at
all, it is due to
the efforts of the villagers. Their
point is that it is on land
belonging to the government and not to
the village. Hence
the assigning of ‘watchers’ to keep
an eve on the
Kendupatti woods.
There seems little doubt, though,
that the
department’s concern rose with the commercial
value of
the trees. There are different
varieties of trees here,
including some that can fetch up to Rs.250
per cubic foot.
The villagers are in no position to ensure they
get actual
market prices for their trees, concedes
Eashwar Podh
However, they would still be, he points out,
in possession
of thousands of teak trees that could
fetch a mini™ ,,™ Qf
Rs.150 a piece anywhere.
There are about seventy teak trees to the
acre,’ claims
Podh. And at that rate, those trees alone
would be worth
close to Rs.4 crores. At market value,
the figure would be
astronomical, running into tens of crores
of rupees. In any
case, even on a very conservative
—
basis that the trees
apart from teak will fetch no more than
Rs.75 each—the
villagers still have a forest worth many
crores of rupees.
‘But we didn’t grow this forest to make money,’ says The villagers of Kendupatti stand in the forest they have grown through their own
efforts.The trees alone are worth crores of rupees The villager's now have to guard
Mohan Baug. ’We felt the need to plant trees, improve the —
.
the forest against predators such as the Forest Department „
area. We may use one tenth of

the trees in selected
stretches for house construction, for entered into some sort of collusion with a few forest guards
personal use by the
villagers. Or sell some to create a and "watchers’. A conflict followed. And one of the
village fund for a proper
department's ‘watchers’ experienced the quality of the
school building, other amenities and
preserve the forest itself. But we won’t allow
—
even to help forest’s timber when caught felling trees. The villagers
destruction fl ogged him with a stout branch.
of this forest. How can we? We laboured
so much to grow Charges were traded, and cases were filed against the
it.’
villagers. Surprisingly, the police took a positive attitude
Even as the fight with the forest
department when the Kendupatti villagers marched down to the
intensified, other predators sneaked
in. The sarpanch of
a nearby village began to encroach on the forest, station and gave their side of the story. The police
widening persuaded the other side to compromise and had some of
the theatre of battle. The sarpanch, say
the villagers.
the charges dropped. The problem, though, remained.
Subsequently, a person appointed by the forest

department was caught by the villagers after he had cut Who says money doesn’t grow on
down a few branches. He responded by charging the trees?
villagers with the crime he had committed. The range
officer found his charges to be false. But the main dispute
still persists.
So who owns this forest? The villagers who grew it? Or
the government, on whose land it stands? Or the forest NUAPADA (Orissa): Ratu Naik is a little drunk, and a little
department, whose duty it is to look after such resources? unhappy too. But, he informs me, ‘I am better off than I
Seems complicated. Except that the dispute arose simply was ten years ago. I have nearly a hundred trees and this
because the villagers created something beautiful and season, I will sell quite a few of them. Believe me, the
valuable and turned a barren land into a forest. They bamur is a good tree.’
could, in fact, end up being penalised for doing something Naik, a small landowner in Konabira village of Komna
the government and its forest department should have, Which means he
block, is a practitioner of ‘ridge farming'.
but never did. grows trees along the ridges of the plots of land owned by
In the eyes of the villagers, the issue is fairly him and his family members. Not just any trees. His
straightforward: ‘If the forest department wants to take specific choice is the bamur (also called babul) tree. ‘This
over this forest,’ says Mohan Baug, ‘all men, women and could be Kalahandi’s miracle tree,’ says Jagdish Pradhan
children here will resist; We will readily go to jail.’ The of the Paschim Orissa Krishijeevi Sangha.
Jagrut Shramik Sanghatan, a local organisation which He could be right. Estimates show that ridge
persuaded them to grow trees in the first place, is ready cultivation of bamur trees could add up to Rs.6,000 to the
for battle. income of small and marginal farmers each year. That is
Kendupatti is learning that while failure might be an a great sum in the Kalahandi region. Bamur [Acacia
orphan, success has no shortage of proud parents, nilotica has several uses.
)
fighting for possession of a priceless child. ‘Its leaf is good for manure,’ says Ratu Naik. ‘When it
falls on the field, it improves the paddy yield. Its wood can
be used in making bullock-carts, agricultural implements,
door frames and other household items.' Naik won’t cut
down all his trees at one go. He practises planned felling.
Between ten and twenty trees will go down this season.
With the assistance of the Banabashi Sangha and the
Orissa Tree Growers Association, Naik made Rs.5,000 in
—
his last sale without altering the balance in the number
of trees substantially. ‘It’s hard to make Rs.5,000, with
from agriculture,’ he says. Naik used to

thrice that effort,
Bamur trees coming up are the result of conscious efforts.
purchase good quality seed that made his subsequent The idea of planting them as a cash crop is catching on.
harvest outstanding.
The tree can also be grown along tank bunds and in
‘For years,’ he says, ‘I had to hire bullocks to cultivate common lands. It needs neither manure nor watering and
my land, borrow money to buy seed. But not now.’ He has stands up pretty well under drought conditions.
purchased his own cart and bullocks and can afford the Growing the tree costs next to nothing. But what me
seed.
the economics of the operation thereafter? The total
Unlike disastrous official experiments with the now cultivable area of the undivided old Kalahandi is around
notorious subabul tree in this region, the bamur is seen 500,000 hectares. Of that, 300,000 hectares constitute
as a local species. ‘It grows very well and swiftly in our
paddy and other crop area. The average landholding in the
soil,’ says Sunadhar Barasagadhia, an expert at the
region is around half a hectare or less. So even by planting
Project Sambhav in Nuapada. ‘And its leaves and fruit Bamur only along the ridges of the plot, farmers can get
provide fodder for the cattle. So it becomes a money- saver.’
around 250 trees per hectare.
The tree has another interesting
feature, points out At present less than ten per cent of farmers have
Jagdish Pradhan. ‘It does not create dense shade, so it gotten into the act. ‘If 70 per cent of them were to adopt
does not greatly block sunlight from the crop grown this practice,’ says Pradhan, ‘then 2. 1 lakh hectares would
beneath it. Maintaining an optimal distance of five to seven be utilised. We would have around 5.25 crore bamur trees
feet between each tree would ensure this. Indeed, its leaves
at 250 per hectare. These would be cut in rotation. Each
serve as green manure for the crop below. Moreover, the
year, the farmers would cut one-seventh of the trees and
branches begin at an appropriate height, so you can store plant an equal number. So there would be 75 lakh saleable
your straw there, out of the reach of cattle and also to dry trees annually. The demand for them is very good.'
out after the rains, if it gets wet.’
Each tree produces five quintals of wood and there is
Little stretches of the Kalahandi region are dotted with
a minimum market rate of Rs 1 00 per quintal. That gives
bamur trees holding the farmers’ straw. In some villages a base value of Rs 500 for trees that are around six years
of Nuapada, farmers now seem to be growing these trees
old. ‘This promises an earning of Rs 375 crores a year to
quite systematically. the growers,’ points out Pradhan. ’Most of them,
So how come the farmers here took to bamur? How remember, are small farmers with minor holdings. Extend
did they resist the craze for, say, eucalyptus? Duryodhan
this experiment to Orissa as a whole, say, by multiplying
Sabarof Bargwon village says: 'After massive deforestation the figure by ten times. There would be an earning of close
in our areas, we had to think of bamur. It is only during
to Rs. 4,000 crores.'
the last six to ten years that ridge-farming of bamur has
That could be more than all the money invested by the
occurred to us as a strategy.’ Orissa government in coming years in the sixteen sugar
The value of that strategy was driven home by the factories and other projects it hopes to set up across the
growing scarcity of timber. Earlier, the Bamur would grow state. The Orissa Tree Growers Association calculates it
naturally and farmers only had to tend it. Now, most could dramatically add to the incomes of the small
farmers. Together with the Banabashi Sangha, it has set

problem the farmers face now is that posed by the forest
about creating a self- regulating marketing mechanism for
department. Growers taking their trees to market are often
them. Previously, all those functions were in the hands of
stopped by officials who accuse them of stealing timber from the
traders and moneylenders.
forest. Some of the officials simply demand a commission.
Marketing has not been an easy ride. As late as 1992,
However, the farmers' bodies seem to be sorting out the problem.
traders were buying up Bamur at Rs.25 a quintal or less.
Transportation wasn’t easy either. The following year, the
Banabashi Sangha and the Jagrut Shramik Sanghatan
started organising the farmers. A year later, they had
broken the Rs. 100 a quintal barrier. As their marketing
skills improve, that rate is going up. A mature tree, one
that is around fifteen years old and can provide around 15
quintals of wood, can today fetch Rs.2,000.
Perhaps the most interesting aspect of this idea is that
it evolved from the farmers’ own experience. Jagdish
Pradhan stresses this despite his own pioneering role in
bringing back the Bamur tree in a significant way. The
practice existed earlier but somehow died out decades ago,
he says. However, NGOs such as the Banabashi Sangha
and Jagrut Shramik Sanghatan did play a major role in
selling the idea to farmers in the early ’90s. That these
bodies had purely local roots probably helped.
There’s more to the Bamur tree than the cash it fetches
on sale, however. As one farmer told me: ‘Don’t just
calculate what money it makes on the market. Calculate
what saves each one of us by way of expenses. The
it
nitrous roots fertilise the soil, the branches protect our

straw. This is the farmer’s tree.’
Postscript
When I returned to Kalahandi region a year later, the process

had grown stronger. A telegram had come in from a traders’ body
giving in to the farmers’ demand for a better price. The main
The patwari’s concern is not entirely about the

To market for greens, back with prestige of the village. Senior officers suspended both patel
and patwari last month after the measles -dysentery
elephant deaths. Neither had made any effort at all to alert the
authorities or otherwise help the victims. The patwari sees
in the election of the two women a way of retaining his hold
over the panchayat. Immediately, he might be right. In the
MATRINGA, Surguja (M.P.) ‘We didn’t know anything long run, he could be making a mistake.
about it. We were told to become members of the Now that they’re in, Jugmania and Guruvari are not
panchayat and we did. We didn’t ask to be elected. But we terribly unhappy. Both agree that women ought to be in
were.’ Jugmania and Guruvari are both Majhwar the panchayat, though they feel afraid of ‘speaking in front
tribals.
They have become panchas in Madhya Pradesh’s first-ever of everyone’. They come from families of very poor farmers.
serious panchayat polls. Certainly the first after the Neither knows the name of the panchayat or which wards
constitutionalamendment. they were elected from. But they're willing to learn.
Both now represent wards reserved for women in Later, I see a similarly odd situation in Jhabua
Matringa village. And both were elected unopposed.
•
district. There, Gendhubhai heads an all-women’s
Matringa shot to notoriety after seven children died from panchayat at Rama village in Rama block. They have had
a lethal combination of measles and dysentery between a female sarpanch for some time now. Curiously, though
February and April 1994. The panchayat polls, spread over only 65 per cent of seats were reserved for women, it has
ten days from 25 May, present a picture of splendid become an all-female panchayat. And every member has
confusion. Especially so in Surguja, which has 2,793 come in unopposed.
panchayats. While this has been beneficial, the male generosity
So how did Jugmania and Guruvari enter the fray? involved is a little suspect. As one of them tells me: ‘If
When we went to the bazaar one day, the patwari and two- thirds were going to be female, how could we men sit
patel stopped us, made us put our thumb impression in a min ority in front of the women? It isii’t right. So we
on
the forms and told us we were elected. We protested. thought: better to have only women on it. After all, their
But
the patwari said the prestige of our village would work is to sign the papers when they have to sign.’
be
lowered if we didn't do as we were told.’ This could prove to be a miscalculation over time. The
Sabzi laane ke liye gaye bazaar, haathi leke aaye,
‘ ’ process is having an impact on the women’s
laughs a neighbour. Didn’t the patwari tell them about consciousness. They speak of the need for a female doctor,
why it was important to have women in the panchayats? for more jobs. They want to improve the school. Yet, in the
’No,’ says Guruvari. ‘He told us: ‘You just do what present framework, male dominance continues. Most of
we tell
you to.' And later, our husbands also told the elected women are too intimidated to speak up and
us to do
whatever the patwari wanted.’ assert themselves.
Back in Surguja, one official says: ’You’re going to have
—
this for a while the men manipulating the women. Still, payment forworking on those roads. In Matringa, a road
the very entry of women could change things over the of sorts came up simply because of the mandatory
years.’ The picture is varied. Some voluntary bodies are ministerial visit after the deaths. But locals who worked
training villagers for participation in panchayats. The Ekta to build that road are yet to be paid. In Jajgir in Udaipur
Parishad, for instance, has taken a lead in this. In and elsewhere, delayed payment for tendu patta collection
Lakhanpur, Chandana Padwal is an exceptional is a burning issue.
candidate. She is the only woman candidate in this or There are 30,294 gram panchayats, 459 janpad
many other blocks with a postgraduate degree (in panchayats and 45 zilla panchayats in Madhya Pradesh.
sociology). She aims to be a sarpanch. Each gram panchayat has at least ten members, rising to
She is articulate and credible. Her victory would twenty where the village’s population exceeds 1 ,000. Apart
threaten male hegemony in that area. from the 33 per cent reservation for women, 25 per cent
There is, however, no candidate for sarpanch in of the seats are reserved for SC and ST candidates where
Matringa. Several wards in that panchayat are they are less than 50 per cent of the population in a block.
uncontested. No parties have done any direct canvassing. Where their population is over 50 per cent, the reservation
(Unless you count one pro-BJP candidate who is moves up to 33 per cent. There are more reservations for
promising his village a temple.) And a very low level of women within the wards reserved for SC and ST
consciousness prevails. Still, there are positive signs too. candidates.
Most of the men in Matringa, Jajgi, Udaipur and The creation of "women -only' wards has confused the
Lakhanpur agree that women ought to be in the district’s dull election officers. They began telling women
panchayat. In Matringa, Ghasiaram, who lost a three-year candidates that they could only contest these seats. So an
old son in the measles-dysentery outbreak, says: ‘They exasperated collector had to explain to them that they
certainly can't do worse than the men. Apart from the could not bar women from other wards. As one woman
women, how do the old and new panchayats differ? People candidate points out: ‘If we can't contest in general wards,
are dying just the same.’ there are no general wards. All would be reserved wards!’
‘At least the basis of some useful structures is being This, of course, does not mean there was massive
laid,’ says a senior official from Bhopal. ‘The sheer
participation. In a huge Surajpur centre, just one person
presence of a third of women will make its impact felt over had filed a nomination for the post of sarpanch on the first
time. True, we are going to see a lot of manipulation. But day of the poll process. And there are seventy- nine
let’s hope democratic movements emerge alongside,
sarpanch posts in the centre. In Surajpur block, not a
single ward member’s nomination, male or female, had
raising consciousness. It could make for a great
combination. Such movements, however, are some way been filed during the first two days.
off from emerging in Surguja and much of rural Madhya The officer-in-charge, Satyanarayan Nema, says: ‘At
Pradesh. the moment, political cliques are forming in the villages.
Where the candidates are serious, so are the issues. In the final days, they will get someone literate to fill in the
These range from handpuinps for the villages, to roads and forms properly so they won’t be rejected.* When I last hear
about it, some forms have come in, but nowhere on the
scale expected by Nema. Where there is a wheel
'There is no problem of rigging
here,’ jokes one of the
officers at the Surajpur centre. ‘Anyone can
get elected
who wants to.' The security deposit for women, SC and ST
candidates for the sarpanch’s post is Rs.50. For those in
the general category it is Rs. 200. PUDUKKOTTAI (Tamil Nadu): Cycling as a social
The politically more conscious are sceptical about a movement? Sounds far-fetched. Perhaps. But not all that
system that makes the local MLA and bank officials —
far not to tens of thousands of neo-literate rural women
ex-officio members of the zilla panchayats, as in Pudukkottai district. People find ways, sometimes
it does the
Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha MPs. ‘This brings in all the
curious ones, of hitting out at their backwardness, of
un-elected vested interests,’ asserts one political activist. expressing defiance, of hammering at the fetters that hold
‘They will undermine the panchayats. How will elected them.
members stand up to the MP, if he comes? How many will In this, one of India’s poorest districts, cycling seems
defy the bank manager who controls their loans?’ the chosen medium for rural women. During the past
His point is irrefutable. With no organised political eighteen months, over 100,000 rural women, most of them
movements and a poor level of consciousness in this neo-literates, have taken to bicycling as a symbol of
such problems could prove greater over here. Still,
district, independence, freedom and mobility. If we exclude girls
there could be some surprises. Some change
seems below ten years of age, it would mean that over one-fourth
inherent in the very process and the kind of people it of all rural women here have learnt cycling. And over
will
draw in. We might be seeing a fight-back in embryo. As 70,000 of these women have taken part in public
Jugmania and Guruvari now say of their elections: ‘Isn’t ‘exhibition-cum-contests’ to proudly display their new
it the woman
who keeps the hisaab at home?' The patwari skills. And still the ‘training camps’ and desire to learn
and patel may yet rue the day they had these two elected. continue.
In the heart of rural Pudukkottai, young Muslim
women from highly conservative backgrounds zip along
the roads on their bicycles. Some seem to have abandoned
the veil for the wheel. Jameela Bibi, a young Muslim girl
who has taken to cycling, told me: ‘It's my right. We can
go anywhere. Now I don’t have to wait for a bus. know
I
people made dirty remarks when started cycling, but I

I
paid no attention.’
Fatima is a secondary schoolteacher, so addicted to
cycling that she hires a bicycle for half an hour each
—
evening (she cannot yet afford to buy one each costs over
Rs. 1 ,200). She said: ‘There is freedom in cycling. We are

not dependent on anyone now. I can never give this up
Jameela, Fatima and their friend Avakanni, all in their
early twenties, have trained scores of other young women
from their community in the art of cycling.
Cycling has swept across this district. Women
agricultural workers, quariy labourers and village health
nurses are among its fans. Joining the rush are balwadi
and anganwadi workers, gem-cutters and schoolteachers.
And gramsevikas and mid-day meal workers are not far
behind. The vast majority are those who have just become
literate. The district’s vigorous literacy drive, led by the
Arivoli Iyakkam (Light of Knowledge Movement) has been
quick to tap this energy. Every one of the neo-literate,
‘neo-cyclist' women I spoke to saw a direct link between
cycling and her personal independence.
‘The main thing,’ said N. Kannammal, Arivoli central
coordinator and one of the pioneers of the cycling
movement, ‘was the confidence it gave women. Very
importantly, it reduced their dependence on men. Now we
often see a woman doing a four-kilometre stretch on her
cycle to collect water, sometimes with her children. Even
carting provisions from other places can be done on their
own. But, believe me, women had to put up with vicious
attacks on their character when this began. So many made
filthyremarks. But Arivoli gave cycling social sanction. So
women took to it.’ Visiting an Arivoli ‘cycling training camp’ was an unusual experience.
All the
Early among them, Kannammal herself. Though a prospective learners had turned out in their Sunday best. In Pudukkottai, the
bicycle is a metaphor for freedom.
science graduate, she had never mustered the ‘courage’ to
cycle earlier. a way out of enforced routines, around male -imposed
Visiting an Arivoli training camp’ is an
‘cycling barriers. The neo-cyclists even sing songs produced by
unusual experience. In Kilakuruchi village all the Arivoli to encourage bicycling. One of these has lines like:
prospective learners had turned out in their Sunday best. ‘O sister come learn cycling, move with the wheel of
You can’t help being struck by the sheer passion of the time
pro-cycling movement. They had to know. Cycling offered Very large numbers of those trained have come back
to help new learners. They work free of charge for Arivoli

as (oddly named) ‘master trainers’. There is not only a cycles in one year. That figure is probably an
desire to learn but a widespread perception among them underestimate for two reasons. One, a lot of women,
that all women ought to learn cycling. In turn, their unable to wait for ‘ladies’ cycles, went in for men's bikes.
experience has enriched the literacy movement. The Two, Kannakarajan shared his information with me with
neo-cyclists are bound even more passionately than before great caution. For all he knew, I was an undercover agent
to Arivoli. of the sales tax department.
The whole phenomenon was the brainchild of the Some were even
In any case, not all males were hostile.
popular former district collector, Sheela Rani Chunkath. encouraging. Muthu Bhaskaran, a male Arivoli activist,
Her idea in 1991 was to train female activists so that for instance. He wrote the famous cycling song that has
literacy would reach women in the interior. She also become their anthem.
included mobility as a part of the literacy drive. This flowed When, in the blazing heat of Kudimianmalai' s stone
from the fact that lack of mobility among women played a quarries, you run into Manormani, twenty-two training
,
big role in undermining their confidence. Chunkath others, you know it’s all worth it. A quarry worker and
pushed the banks to give loans for the women to buy Arivoli volunteer herself, she thinks it vital that her
cycles. She also got each block to accept specific duties in co-workers learn cycling. ‘Our areas are a little cut off,’ she
promoting the drive. As the top official in the district, she told me. Those who know cycling, they can be mobile.’ In
gaveit great personal attention. a single week in 1992, more than 70,000 women displayed
First the activists learned cycling. Then neo-literates their cycling skills at the public ‘exhibition-cum- contests’
wanted to learn. Every woman wanted to learn. Not run by Arivoli. An impressed UNICEF sanctioned fifty
surprisingly this led to a shortage of ‘ladies' cycles. Never
,
mopeds for Arivoli women activists.
mind. ‘Gents’ cycles would do just as nicely, thank you. Cycling has had very definite economic implications.
Some women preferred the latter as these have an It boosts income. Some of the women here sell agricultural
additional bar from the seat to the handle. You can seat a or other produce within a group of villages. For them, the
child on that. And to this day, thousands of women here bicycle cuts down on time wasted in waiting for buses.
ride ‘gents’ cycles. Thousands of others dream of the day This is crucial in poorly connected routes. Secondly, it
they will be able to afford any bicycle at all. gives you much more time to focus on selling your
After the International Women’s Day produce. Thirdly, it enlarges the area you can hope to
in 1992, this
district can never be the same. Flags on the handle bars, cover. Lastly, it can increase your leisure time too, should
bells ringing, over 1,500 female cyclists took Pudukkottai you choose.
by storm. Their all -women’s cycle rally stunned the town’s Small producers who used to wait for buses were often
inhabitants with its massive showing. dependent on fathers, brothers, husbands or sons to even
What did the males think? One who had to approve reach the bus stop. They could cover only a limited number
was S. Kannakarajan, owner of Ram Cycles. This single of villages to sell their produce. Some walked. Those who
dealer saw a rise of over 350 per cent in the sale of ‘ladies’ cannot afford bicycles still do. These women had to rush
back early to tend to the children and perform other chores
Everybody Loves cl Good Drought With Their Own Weapons 417
like fetching water. Those who have bicycles now combine first round. But Pudukkottai remains unique among Indian
these different tasks with nonchalance.
Which means you districts for the stunning proportion of women who have taken to
can, even along some remote road, see
a young mother, cycling. And the enthusiasm for gaining the skill among the rest.
child on the bar, produce on the carrier. She could be
carrying two, perhaps even three, pots
of water hung
across the back, and cycling towards work
or home.
would be very wrong to emphasise the economic
Yet, it
aspect over all else. The sense, of self-respect

it brings is
vital. ‘Of course it’s not economic,’ said Fatima,
giving me
a look that made me feel rather stupid.
‘What money do I
make from cycling? I lose money. I can’t afford a bicycle.
But I hire one every evening just to feel that goodness,
that
independence.’ Never before reaching Pudukkottai
had I
seen this humble vehicle in that light— the
bicycle as a
metaphor for freedom.
‘It is difficult for people to see how big this is for rural
women, said Kannammal.
a Himalayan achievement,
‘It’s
like flying an aeroplane, for them. People
may laugh. Only
the women know how important it is.’
suppose the norms of standard journalism demand
I
at this point some ‘balancing’ quotes

from men opposed
to the cycling movement. Frankly, who
the heck cares?
There are a hundred thousand neo-literate women
cycling "
out there and that’s the story.
Those men opposed to it can go take a walk—because
when it comes to cycling, they aren’t in the same league
as the women.
Postscript
When returned to Pudukkottai in April 1995, the craze

I
was still
on. But a large number of women were unable
to afford
bicycles—each now cost around Rs. 1,400. And a new
generation was coming up that was too young to gain from the
Poverty,
Development
and the
Press
Poverty, Development and the Press 421
Development the strategy of evasion. When you can’t

is
give people land reform, give them hybrid cows. When you
can't send the children to school, try non-formal
education. When you can't provide basic health to people,
talk of health insurance. Can't give them jobs? Not to
worry. Just redefine the words ‘employment
opportunities'. Don’t want to do away with using children
as a form of slave labour? Never mind. Talk of ‘improving
the conditions of child labour'. It sounds good. You can
even make money out of it.
This has been true of development, Indian style, for
over four decades now. Central to its philosophy is the idea
that we can somehow avoid the big moves, the painful
ones, the reforms that Indian society really needs. Is there
some way we can improve people’s lives without getting
into annoying things like land reform? There isn't, but
there are powerful people who’d like to believe there is.
The same runs through what we call our
Illusion
globalisation'. It has the Indian elite excited. ‘We must
globalise. There is no choice. Everybody else is doing it.
Look at Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Taiwan, South
Korea.’
Of course, 'everyone' who is doing it,
did a lot of other
—
things. All those countries if you must take authoritarian
—
states as a model went through land reform. They gave
their people literacy and education, as also some
standards of health, shelter, nutrition. Point this out and —
the Indian elite discover our ‘cultural uniqueness’. The
same is true of child labour. Dozens of other societies got
rid of it. But 'India is different’. So India’s uniqueness does
not stand in the way of globalisation. It stands in the way
of land reform, education, health. It does not prevent
external agencies making policies for India on a wide range
of subjects. It does stand in the way of doing away with
child labour.
422 Everybody Loves a Good Drought Poverty, Development and the Press 423
The Indian development experience reeks of this sort come to about two per cent of total cultivable land in India.
of hypocrisy across its four and a half decades. Ignore the
There are other ways of going about it. But let’s not hear
big issues long enough, and you can finally dismiss them
those old stories again, shall we?
as ‘outdated’. Nobody will really bother. A profoundly undemocratic streak runs through
People, however, do bother. The issues of land, forest India's development process. Exclusion doesn’t end at the
and water resources remain fundamental to real symposia. Peasants are excluded from land issues in real
development. The poor are acutely aware of this. After all, life too. Villagers are increasingly robbed of control over
85 per cent of the Indian poor are either landless water and other community resources. Tribes are being
agricultural labourers or small and marginal farmers. more and more cut off from the forests. Yet, elite vision
They know where it hurts. Heal development would mean holds the poor and their experiences in contempt.
more than just letting them know the plans of the elite. It Real development would involve the transformation of
would mean their involvement in the decisions for all the human state to a higher level of being and living.
development, especially their own. Almost all versions of development accept that. However,
Let’s say we hold a seminar on medical issues. To this, such a transformation must have the participation and
we invite not a single doctor, nurse, patient or medical consent of those affected by it. Their involvement in the
expert. A lot of people would consider that odd. And rightly decision-making process. And the intrusion on their
so. The many symposia and conferences where land environment, culture, livelihood and tradition by that
reform gets rubbished are likewise odd. They never have process should be minimal.
a single landless labourer to state his or her case. To the But that sounds too much like work. So you can have
elite that is perfectly natural. Isn’t India unique, after all? a play staged and enacted with all the main actors sitting
Therea single migrant worker among millions
isn’t
who would not tell you how crucial the land issue is. But
—
in the audience if they are around at all. If reality smells,
rewrite the script. Take the current champions of ‘change’.
what do they know anyway? They didn’t go to the right Those shouting loudest about change among the elite are
schools and are not part of the old boy network. Land the very people who ran this country for over forty years.
reform has taken place within our own country. The bulk If it is in a mess, they had much to do with it.
of it in just four states. If it could take place in Jammu The most amusing side to what passes for a debate on
and Kashmir—apart from the familiar examples of Kerala, the economy is not so much the change but the amazing
—
West Bengal and Tripura it is surely possible elsewhere continuity of so many elements. Sure, June 1991
in the nation? represents a major leap in some ways. But it was not one
Take the country as a whole and you get a different in a more progressive direction. A Narasimha Rao and a
picture. Just a little over one per cent of total cultivable Manmohan Singh are quintessential representatives ofthe
area has been redistributed. That is, of 455 million acres, old order they want to ‘change’. They were party to, even
only 4.5 million have been distributed among the poor. authors of, some of the policies of the past that are now in
The eighth plan says about 2.6 million acres ‘are still to disgrace. Oddly, the adversarial’ media see no irony in
be distributed'. Even if this were done, that would still this.
424 Everybody Loves a Good Drought Poverty, Development and the Press 425
come, those who seek to author it must

If ‘change* is to
made curious reading but the press missed out on it.
have credibility. And
that, a credibility of record. Not one in it for the new
The first responsibility listed
invented by a media chorus that has no link at all to what
department of food was: 'Participation in international
hundreds of millions of Indians are thinking. This growing The
conferences and other bodies concerning food . . .
disconnect of the ‘mass’ media from mass reality is getting and agreements with
second? ‘Entering into treaties
worse.
foreign countries .Those priorities tell us so much, it
.
.’
seems pointless to repeat the rest.

The unfinished agenda
There are more poor in India today than was the
population of the country in 1947. Yet, the government
The rituals, of course, are always observed. Editorials on celebrates the swift decline of poverty. A good part of the
the economy end, after much celebration of policy, on a media have joined it in this. Never mind that at
mandatory note of concern for the poor. Most discussions
Copenhagen we said 39.9 per cent of the population were
in elite fora on the economy go the same way.
The below the poverty line. That was to make some money from
intellectuals, the economists, the bureaucrats, policy
donors. Look at it now, 19 per cent!
makers, all agree on one thing. Something must be done
If we were to define a sleeping bag as a house, India
about poverty. Everyone agrees that 'not enough is being
would move swiftly towards ending her housing shortage.
done’.
A shortage of nearly thirty-one million units. Accept this
Many speak with passion to insist that ‘both’ things definition, and you could go in for mass production of
must go together. Thatis, poverty reduction on the one
sleeping bags. We could then have passionate debates
hand. And economic reforms (or what the elite see as about the drastic reduction in the magnitude of the
reforms) and growth on the other. So, in theory, there is housing problem. The cover stories could run headlines:
always this two-part agenda. It makes all participants in
‘Is it for real?’ And straps: ‘Sounds too good to be true, but
the debate feel good. Progress is being made. The reforms
it is.’
are fine. But something must be done about poverty'.
The government could boast that had not only
it
Poverty, education health these make up ‘the
. . .
stepped up production of sleeping bags but had piled up
unfinished agenda’. The discussion ended, the an all-time record surplus of them. Say, thirty- seven
participants go back to what they’re really working on.
million. Conservatives could argue that we were doing so
That is, part two of the agenda. Because part one is a
well, ihe time had come to export sleeping bags, at ‘world
sham. But it makes you feel good, doesn't it?
prices'. The bleeding hearts could moan that sleeping bags
One example of the commitment of the former
had not reached the poorest. Investigative muckrakers
Narasimha Rao government to fighting poverty came in
could scrutinise the contracts given to manufacturers.
March 1995. That month, it announced the formation of
Were the bags overpriced? Were they of good quality?
several new departments in key ministries to tackle
That ends the housing shortage. There's only one
poverty on a war footing. This was on the front pages of
problem. Those without houses at the start of the
most newspapers on March 9. The official notification
programme will still be without houses at the end of it.
Everybody Loves a Good Drought 427
Poverty, Development and the Press
(True, some of them will have sleeping bags, probably at methods still show that while rural poverty declined in the
world prices.)
’80s, it rose steeply in just the first eighteen months of the
If all this sounds insane,
that's only because it is. Yet, ‘reforms’ alone. The Commission’s own mid-term
what passes for a debate on poverty in this
country not is appraisal (MTA) of the reforms makes interesting reading.
very different. There’s a point beyond
which the numbers But let’s leave sleeping bags lie.
game—based on present definitions—gets as crazy as
the It is crucial to understand this about the landless
sleeping bag argument.
agricultural workers and marginal fanners who make up
An understanding of poverty anchored in the
norm serves us about as well. But these basics are
calorie 85 per cent of India’s poor: they are net purchasers of
seldom foodgrain. Hikes in grain prices hit them very badly.
questioned by the non-poor. So it is only
natural that the Inflation is strongly linked to food prices. So its impact on
latest inanity of the Planning Commission should receive
these sections is always worse.
so much attention. That is, its claim
that the number of For instance, urban middle class professionals spend
people below the poverty line had fallen
dramatically, from much less of their incomes on food than, say, industrial
25.5 per cent in 1 987-88 to 1 per cent in
9 1993-94. (A note workers. Both spend less on food than landless labourers
on the official poverty line and how it is arrived
at is given and small farmers. So when food prices go up, those
in Appendix 1.)
spending more on it are hit. Industrial workers suffer, but
One of the newspaper stories on this appeared
several agricultural labourers have it worst.
days before the Planning Commission
‘unveiled’ its new Millions are eating less. How does that constitute a
figures in January 1996. It said
poverty had ’dropped reform? The availability of foodgrain per person in this
sharply to the lowest levels ever’. sourced this finding
It to country has declined. Per capita daily net availability of
‘highly placedgovernment officials'.
cereals and pulses fell from 510 gm in 1991 to 46 1 gm for
There you have a flavour of the poverty
‘sharp’ drop in poverty is something
debate. The —
1995-96 the government’s own data show us that.
to be revealed by Inflation has crushed agricultural labour. Their real wages
highly placed officials’. Such modesty,
too. It‘s like have declined. But there’s a 37 million tonne surplus of
Einstein not wanting to be credited
publicly with the foodgrain of which we can all be proud. The sleeping bag
Theory of Relativity. Not yet, anyway. Is
poverty a state syndrome at its best.
secret? One that can only be revealed
by highly placed
official sources?
The collapse of the PDS
The Commission arrived at its new
estimates by
throwing out the suggestions of its own expert
report, in 1993, placed the number of
group. Their The public distribution system (PDS) is in a state of
poor at 39 per cent advanced decay. Pointing to a slight rise in offtake in a few
of the population. Even if we accept
the old discredited months of 1995 makes a poor joke. Over a four-year
methods the Commission now wants to use, it does
not period, grain purchased through the PDS fell drastically.
show a decline in poverty in the years of the
reforms Quite the contrary. The most
economic Why? The government raised issue prices by around 85
.
conventional of per cent in that time. This is unprecedented in the
Everybody Loves a Good Drought Poverty, Development and the Press 429
country’s post-independence history. So offtake from the irrelevant . . .
PDS declined six million tonnes. This, in part, allows us The trauma of the rural poor has left the elite
to boast of our gigantic buffer stock. unmoved. Some even talk of exporting the grain at ‘world
Between March and June 1995, nineteen children prices’. (The vast majority of Indian agriculturists are net
belonging to poor tribal families in Dhule, Maharashtra, buyers of grain.) Within the country, food prices have shot
died of starvation. Not far from where the deaths occurred up. Who talks of “world prices’ for the labour of the Indian
were godowns stocked to the roof with foodgrain. The peasants or workers? So Indians face world prices, but will
families of the victims just could not access or afford not get world class incomes. In short, globalisation of
that
grain. prices, Indianisation of incomes.
In 1992 Prime Minister Rao put in place the scheme A mid-day meal scheme that works out to spending
called the Revamped
Public Distribution System (RPDS). around 0.57 paise per meal per child. A housing
This was to be part of a ‘strictly targeted regime’. The programme that is a disaster. An approach to public
PDS
was wasteful. But this government would set that right. It health that has seen a huge resurgence of malaria, among
chose ,778 very backward blocks
1 in the country for the other diseases. A ‘massive’ rural development budget of a
RPDS. would ‘target’ the poor on
It a special basis. little over Rs.7,000 crore —
that works out to roughly the
It did. It is precisely in the
targeted blocks that subsidy on two major fertilisers (used mostly in ninety-five
starvation deaths have occurred in the past five years. In not-so-poor districts). That has been this government’s
Thane, Dhule and Amravati districts (all in the rich state response to the ‘unfinished agenda’.
of Maharashtra). In Surguja district of Madhya Again, many attitudes on view in this period go back
Pradesh.
In other RPDS blocks elsewhere. some years. Among these, the attempt by governments to
In practice, RPDS simply meant selling grain in these abdicate their duties towards citizens. The dilution of
blocks at around 50 paise less per kilogram than people's rights did not begin with Narasimha Rao. (He can
elsewhere. Since prices in even the regular PDS were claim credit, though, for hastening the process.) Whether
hovering around Rs.8 a kg, this did not help. In Surguja on child labour or in the field of education, the actions of
in 1994, the then district collector confirmed that successive Indian governments violate the constitution.
people
were getting employment for only around 1 25 days a year. The forms and channels of abdication are many. One,
How were they to afford these prices? in recent times, is most favoured. That is: leave it to the
The upward revision of grain prices was never NGOs. Non-govemmental organisations are supposed to
matched by rises in daily minimum wages. The current be able to take care of gigantic problems affecting
minimum wage in such zones varies from Rs.20 to Rs.22. hundreds of millions of people. Problems that elected
In practice, poorly organised labourers don’t get much gove rnm ents, with the full force of state machinery behind
more than Rs. 15 or Rs. 16 per day. them, apparently can’t handle.
In 1995, the man who had been the main expert on
poverty in the Prime Minister’s Office, K.R. Venugopal,
wrote in anguish that the PDS and RPDS have become
Passing the buck

the establishment, with government and with the agenda
The best among the of their funding bodies.
NGO activists see through this Some
A little reality therapy is in order: the government
££
nandled and resolved by the
majOT ‘-estevemX
state. They do see
that the
wants a ‘partnership’ with NGOs. In this, it sees an
commitments towards 921
tate is just trying to opportunity to discard its
pass the buck to them A lot
hmvever, seem to revel In of others million citizens on fundamentals like health, education,
the new era. Then
«th the state render them
anything C non
housing. These are best left to NGOs, while the state
tinkers around with a few trifling issues, like how to double
^cToTng'os
yp NGOs
Yel de e any’
T “
remain the sacred cows of
Particular the wealth of the richest five per cent.
- Noos •**
the press its The World Bank is no less enthusiastic. Its bulletin of
22 September 1994 says, ‘NGO Involvement in Bank
Projects Grows Rapidly'. notes approvingly that
It
P CSS Covers development issues does
116
helD^h^Tv! e k not ‘involvement by non-governmental organisations jumped
cSvn T
b6en br°adly’ two tracks
ent J ° UmaliSin ThC ‘g°
’
in what m^v
vemme nt’ or ‘official
’
from 30 per cent to 50 per cent of Bank projects’. And we
m?df^Ze non-governmental organisation
all saintly NGO the Bank is.
know what a
^temê
an . .
journahsm* mode. Both hate

(NGO) or International funding agencies are using NGOs to
largely faild The
ady dlscredited requires dump fertilisers, harmful contraceptives and obsolete
i?h
S ttI little
031 elements ta ,hls
.
argument technologies. Even for corporate market research. NGOs
Sch are^m
wmcn are h^”
not to be dismissed offhand.)
framework too are sometimes created for this purpose. There are groups
Itabout what governments
is in this country that have tried to push ‘drip irrigation’ in
are doing which is
m^rtant. (Some of the things districts that have abundant rainfall. They hawked a
governments do defy the technique used for the deserts of Israel (in regions not
imagination.) For example,
there are 2,000 water
sunk m
one drought-prone area. The
criticalXwm
wells lacking in rain) because some corporate had something to
mode would be: Were those of sell. Besides, in India, many NGOs are contractors for
wells enough? Did thev
come too late? Should there government schemes.
have been aumher sl Tf
t They also provide white collar employment. Nepal,
“ But yes the

a”
eflected critical comment.
tateral
S
XNSos
NGO or alternative mode of development
aS 3180 falled Worse fts
virtuous halo has
-
Somehow, there is often a

0f d ‘SbelIef
J ° UmaIIStS “> ^
’
^
—
next door, has over 10,000 NGOs one for every 2,000
inhabitants. Compare that with how many teachers,
doctors or nurses it has per 2,000 citizens. Funds flowing
in through its 1 50 foreign NGOs account for 1 2 per cent
of Nepal’s GNP. Whose agenda do these funds push? In
India, it is hard to even work out a credible figure, but the
the ° l0gy holds that NGOs stand outside
the Sh
en!' ThCy Present a credible fund flows are much larger in dollar terms.
it r^ majon
! ? alternative
y of NGOs are, alas, deeply integrated
to Some government have relatives running
officials
with NGOs. Quite a few launch an NGO or begin to head one
n rnen * they retire.

^ hxdia
m ^°
t
This makes a good sinecure
need certificates under the Foreign NGOs stone. It can hardly be used to tar all NGOs. What is
Contributfons undeniable, however, is the extent to which corruption is

Regda ion Act (FCRA) before they
hinds. It is much easier to
can receive foreign now entrenched in the NGO sector.
get such a certificate if you But the obsession with viewing development through
the NGO prism persists. Of course, a few NGOs have done
1 1 fflClal yourself S °me
dmm^T
during their ? !
last years in office.
-
At
start the process
that point, the NGO
is great work. Still, the romanticisation of this sector has got
he^TfêrT ^
themselves
SOme °ne
ê^retirement^they elSe ‘ ridiculous.
~ complete with certificate. A British NGO in India has commissioned a
officials,
Former
especially senior ones, have
one more advantage multi-episode TV programme on ‘change makers’ {read
hey know the inside funding
track and priorities^ activists on its projects). This will cost a bomb. The
government. So they can and do
design their projects and activists, not the villagers, will be its heroes. In short, a
proposals according*. And
they have aU °he r«W contemporary version of the heathen savage approach.
contacts. This means they
do well. The same way that The people are not change makers, NGO activists are. As
retired army brass make
good arms salesmen. the missionaries once were.
n ttar Pradesh, numerous NGOs
_ C Sl ey
, . focusing
y on Population issues were born overnight
Development is a money-spinning industry. So much
^ ^ in a so that it merits, twenty-six times a year, a United Nations
few
f districts. They materialised soon after a
1992 US^D journal called Development Business This is a ‘Fortnightly
.
dealbrought US S 325 million so!ely
MOs htf
,
;er
ihI,fwhere n^,s
S a C
Kandhmal district of Orissa, a

for population
S °f tha ‘ State
tribal group has

P ” ^ ' 111 Urba" '“dia,
contS
*** «
guide to consulting, contracting and supply opportunities
around the world’. The development industry has co-opted
many NGOs, and much of development journalism.
more
Quite a few ‘development journalists’ {often among the
sensitive and decent elements in the profession)
declared war on fifteen
NGOs, including some famous unquestioningly accept the role of NGO spokespersons. All
11®' hSS g Ven them sb! mon, hs the critical faculties they exercise when reporting politics
1™ ve toe dSlTa 'l
‘
to
newspapers a list of^ctlvl'sVfrom ^^“^ whû 0

or business get lobotomised on this front. Lack of
scepticism makes for bad journalism and wearisome copy.
s^Me^rr
CAPART a government-established
is
h“organisation
baCkgr° UndS - N° «* *âs NGOs can and do work when filling gaps.
excellent
They can and do outstanding work within modest
objectives. They cannot be a substitute for the state. They
fUndS NG ° S In 1995 - 96
^r &TS! r C ° rrUpl “ n mnn,n
" W^klisted -
- cannot fulfil its responsibilities. The worst of governments
3
rawsee " C PART offlclals sa
True, this f
y
is not a one-way problem
UC t0 ^
e ‘o erores of
this is only the beginning
,
and some ofthe^JcS

that iS unflattering about
in this country has to face the public after five years. The
worst of
—
NGOs only accountable to its funding
is
agency which might well support, even spur on dubious
itself *fi
how CAPART activities that do not benefit the poor.
functions.
t-
Nor is the blacklist an edict
carved True, many actions of some NGOs have proved most
valuable.I have tried to record a few in

this book. Yet,
however supportive one is of such actions, far greater has a political core.
changes, beyond their reach, are also required. All also calls for facing the truth about the living
It
the
NGO projects across the country together will not achieve standards of Indians.
the lasting effects a major land reform will in a single After over four decades of ‘development’, these facts
state.
Again, the best NGOs and their activists know this. remain: One out of every three persons in the world lacking
They safe and adequate drinking water is an Indian. Nearly one
are quite embarrassed by governmental attempts
to co-opt
their sector in every two illiterates in the world is a citizen of this
while abandoning the state’s own
responsibilities. country. Nearly one of every three children outside schools
As in the planet is an Indian.
for government projects: a number of disparate,
often contradictory, fire-fighting measures pass for The largest number of absolute poor live in this
development. Even where criticised, the notion that these country. So do the largest number of those with
amount to development at all is not often questioned. inadequate housing. Indians have among
the lowest per
Mostly, these function without popular consultation, capita consumption of textiles in the world. There are more
leave
alone participation. So a high rate of failure gets built in job seekers registered at the employment exchanges of
India than there are jobless in all the twenty- four nations
.
That can happen to the best of schemes.

You can have both: pressure on the state to perform of the OECD put together. Yet, this nation has over
its duties towards citizens, and good forty- four million child labourers, the largest contingent
NGO activity. But Human
that calls for a sense of proportion. About development in the world. India’s dismal position in the UNDP’s
Development Index has not improved in the last five years.
About people’s entitlements. About the real reforms this
country needs. Reforms to do with land, water and forest It has, if anything, fallen.
resources. With Every third leprosy patient in the globe is an Indian.
education, health, nutrition and
employment. So is every fourth being in the planet dying of water-borne
or water-related diseases. Over three fourths of all the
Signalling the tuberculosis cases that exist at any time world-wide are
weaknesses
in this country. No nation has more people suffering from
What does it call for in the press? In covering development, blindness. Tens of millions of Indians suffer from
itcalls for placing people and their needs at the malnutrition.
centre of
the stories. Not any intermediaries, however saintly. Decades ago, an attorney in the United States,
It calls for better coverage of the rural commenting on the dismal role of the American press in a
political process.
miscarriage of justice, said they failed signal the
‘to
Of political action and class conflict, not politicking. Quite
a few good journalists hold back from this territory. They weakness in society’. That remains a fine definition of the
fear, perhaps justifiably, being branded as minimum duty of a decent press: to signal the weaknesses
’political’! read
leftist). Yet, evading reality helps no one. in society. It is a duty the Indian press increasingly fails
A society that Whether on Mandal, Ayodhya or the economy,
does not know itself, cannot cope. And development itself to perform.
it has been unable to meet that standard.
More stories on the rights and entitlements of the

poor
could help. The press can and does make a and ’40s may have been very ill equipped. Some would call
difference when them pamphleteers. Despite this, from within a very
it functions.
Governments do react and respond to the
press in this country. The Indian press narrow press, they reflected much wider social concerns.
has been very
strong in some respects. For instance, As early as in 1893, Reuters assigned a
in its coverage of
events, it could compare with the best correspondent, S.H.S.Merewether, to cover the famine-hit
in the world. Even
in the 80s, the stories on Kalahandi districts of this country. Apart from his reports; this
could force two prime
ministers to visit the place. resulted in a book, A Tour through the Famine Districts of
^ has proved increasingly inept at covering India. In it, he wrote that his assignment came about after
processes. Especially, the development a request Her Majesty's Government had made of Reuters.
process. The more
elitist it gets, the less it will The Raj, among other things, wanted to counter the riffraff
be able to do this. Even its
coverage of events will suffer. Most big of the nationalist press. The Reuters man stood up for the
publications now
cover a wide array of beats and issues. Far Raj. Denouncing the Indian press for its ‘sedition’, he
more than the
basic politics, sports and commerce divisions wrote that ‘a censorship of the native press would not only
of a decade
ago. You can have several people be expedient, but seems an absolute necessity*.
covering aspects of
business in the same publication. Newspapers It seems extraordinary that so minuscule a press
also find
space for fashion, design and society/glamour should have had such an impact. More than a hundred
columns.
Even eating out columns* years later, a much larger press has failed to do the same.
Fair enough. Surely a little more space Issues crucial to hundreds of millions of Indians demand
can be found
its attention. But it has not put the government on the
for social sector issues— if you want to? Compare the space
mat.
given to the death of a Rajan Pillai in jail to
that given to
the deaths of the children in Dhule. The Even now, the press can do much more. Even allowing
biggest journals
in this country gave far more space for the limits a growing process of corporatisation places
to Imran Khan’s
wedding than to the starvation deaths. How on its character. It has very many journalists of high
many calibre and many who would like to signal those
newspapers have reporters covering the issues of
rural
weaknesses in society. It is in some ways better equipped
poverty full-time? (I do not mean analysts
are important. I mean reporters.) In most
—
though they
than ever to do the things it wants to. The question is, will
publications, the
correspondent covering education also often has it do the things it has to?
several
other beats to attend to. The same is true of
those covering
other social sector beats. How will justice ever
be done to
the 'unfinished agenda’?
The Indian press has very strong traditions on this
score. Those who led the freedom struggle
understood its
importance and most nationalist leaders doubled up
as
some point. The journalists of the ’20s, ’30s
journalists at
Acknowledgements 439
stories from Kalahandi. Later, with Dina Vakil, I found the

same freedom.
Acknowledgements One editor who believed this project could be pulled
off even before it began was N. Ram of Frontline. I owe him
a great deal. Thanks to Susan Ram for looking at the early
drafts of two chapters.
Iwas awarded a Times Fellowship for the year 1992 (work Friends who made invaluable inputs at all levels
beginning in mid- 1993). This book is the result of included Venkatesh Athreya, N.D. Jayaprakash, Anil K.
work Chaudhaiy, K. Nagraj and Sitaram Yechuiy.
carried out in that capacity between 1 May
1993 and 15 Sanjay Kapoor, Surender, Kamal and others in Blitz's
June 1995, with financial support from the Fellowships
Council lasting a full year till 30 April 1994. I Delhi Bureau helped in many ways. Thanks to Jaya Mehta
gratefully for her assistance.
acknowledge the support of The Times of India Group.
Interacting with the Times Fellowships Council
Thanks also to innumerable other journalists in many
was a publications across the country who gave me their
positive experience. The Council remained wholly
supportive throughout the project. My sincere thanks unstinting and unselfish assistance.
to I owe much to P. V. Ramaniah Raja and the trustees
all its members. Its chairman, Ashok
Jain spoke to me of the Raja-Lakshmi Foundation for their handsome
more than once during the project, expressing his support
for the work underway. That was support at a crucial juncture. The award they gave this
reassuring and work made affordable two other parts of the project: a
important feedback.
visual archive of people at work and an oral archive of
K. Balakrishnan, Honorary Secretary of the
Council, hundreds of interviews. I also thank Jayesh Shah of
played an extraordinary role. He made it possible for
me Humanscape, and the juries of the Humanscape
to focus all my energy on the field work
and writing. He Fellowship, The Statesman Rural Reporting Award, and
and Narayanee Mantoo were a great help. Their efficiency
made up for my laziness with paperwork. A trained the PUCL Human Rights Journalism prize for their
economist, Balakrishnan also made valuable inputs support. No one bore the troubles, disruption and
suggestions between my trips to the different states—one
and —
expenses the project brought and they were many more —
of the reasons I always went via Delhi. patiently than my wife, Sonya Gill. If I could continue the
I was lucky in having the support
work long after the official fellowship period, it was
of all the editors I
worked with. Dileep Padgaonkar and Darryl D’Monte gave because of her. From Madras, miracle man P. Mohan Rao
me complete freedom while making helpful suggestions. helped spur me on at all times.
Tamil .Nadu: G. Ramakrishna, the Arivoli Iyakkam, K.
Many, many thanks to them. Most of my reports were
published when the two of them were at the Times. Dileep Suresh. Volunteers of the Tamil Nadu Science Forum.
was ever encouraging. Danyl probably holds some sort of Pudukkottai: N. Kannamal, one of the finest activists I
record for phone calls received from really far out have ever met. Special thanks to Prabhakaran,
places. Sivaramakrishnan, Raj Kumar, Vivekanandan,
Hi§ suggestions resulted in some of the most important
440 Acknowledgements Acknowledgements 44
Manlkatai, G. Shekhar and the Quarry Women Workers

Economic Development, especially Hrushikesh, helped in
Association. Also, then Collector Anuradha Khati-Rajivan.
an astonishing number of ways. Special thanks to Santosh
Ramnad: My friend Kasinathadurai. Rajendran, Das and Janardhan Pati. Walter Fernandes in Delhi for
Karunanidhi and Muralikrishnan and other activists of
the tons of information on displacement issues.
the Arivoli. Gynavasalam of the AU India Kisan
Sabha. K. Malkangiri and Koraput: Surendra Khemendu was a
Rajan, K. Sudhir, T. Paneerselvam. L. Krishnan who
was great help and perfect interpreter. Thanks also to Ajit
then Collector.
Kumar Das, B. Majhi, Kamraj Kawasi, R.K. Patro, T.S.
Bihar: Nothing would have happened without
my old Sabar. Raghunath Majhi and K.K. Mohanty in
friend S.P. Tiwari. Many thanks to the ever
helpful Uttam Bhubaneswar. Malkangiri Collector G.K. Dhal.
Sen Gupta and other colleagues at The Times
of India, Nuapada and Kalahandi: Meeting Jagdish Pradhan was
Patna. Also, to Ujwal Singh. K. Suresh Singh in
Delhi was one of the high points of the project. How much he added
a mine of information. Many thanks to Arvind Das in
Delhi. to my knowledge and perspective! What I learned from him
Godda: Manjul Kumar Das, Ram Swarup. Indeijeet
helped right through the rest of the project. No one knows
Tiwari, Motilal, Suman Daradhiyar, S. Murmu and the the Kalahandi region better. Special thanks to ex-MLA
villagers of Dorio.
Kapil Narain Tiwari in Khariar. My friend S.K. Pattnaik
Palamau: Bachan Singh and family, who put up so kindly
gave me a great deal of his time and knowledge.
with some ridiculous schedules and my
abrupt Ghanshyam Bithria, Bishwamber Joshi and A.V. Swamy.
disappearances. My friend Narendra Chaubey who
made Madhya Pradesh: Special thanks to Raju Azad of the
it possible for me to meet and
stay with communities like MPVS who dropped all his work to take me to Surguja.
the Birhors and Parhaiyas. Chaubey took me to
places and Also to Shailendra Shaily. A big debt to R. Gopalakrishnan,
on trips I had not thought possible. Pascal Minj, F.Petras,
perhaps the most unusual bureaucrat I have met. Talking
Bishwamber Dubey, Dalip Kumar and S.K. Singh.
to him helped shape up a number of ideas. Again, the old
Shatrughan and Arjun of the Chhotanagpur Samaj Vikas
Sansthan. My friend,
Blitz —
network came in handy many thanks to Manoj
the late Baidyanath Singh. Mathur. Also, Vinod Raina and Anita Rampal.
Dilbassiya Devi of Latehar and the many families of Surguja: Mehdi Lai Yadav who tramped all over that huge
Balumath and Netrahat who put me up. The then deputy
district with me. Jitender Singh Sodhi, Arjun Das, Nanka
commissioner Santosh Matthew, was not only helpful but
,
also frank and honest in discussing the problems

Ram, Ashok Kumar Das. Special thanks to advocates H.N.
of his Shrivastava, Mohan Kumar Giri and S. Verma. Also to
district.
Nesar Naaz, K.S. Yadav and Dalip Kumar.
Orissa: My former Blitz colleague Suiya Das functioned
Jhabua: I was really lucky to meet Amita Baviskar. A
likea human dynamo. I have still not figured out how he
scholar and expert on the area, she was also interpreter
handled the logistics of it, but he managed to reach me
for some crucial interviews. I would have missed many
films and have my rolls collected in really remote
places. vital nuances of displacement- related issues but for her
My old friend Balaji Pandey’s inputs and knowledge were
inputs. The amazing Meerza Ismail Beg, painter and
invaluable. He and the staff of the Institute of Social
and retired teacher who assisted me so greatly —and
442 Acknowledgements Acknowledgements 443
Purshottan Tiwari of Indore. The ever helpful Hemant Jain achievements of his juniors as in his own. Never mind that
who produced all the data I heeded. Jagannath Bharati, we parted ways in early 1 993. Every one of the awards this
Sunder lal Jain and M. Valia. And Ashok Mandoloi who project won had first to be displayed on his desk.
What a
gave me so much of his time. Special thanks to Luaria and human being!
his family for putting me up, and for all their help in
Jalsindhi. Many thanks to Jayshree, Amit, Chittaroopa
Palit and other activists of the Khedut Mazdoor Chetana
Sangath.
Bombay: A large number of people helped right through,
especially ex-students. Special thanks to Dionne Bunsha
and Priyanka Kakodkar for all their assistance—and the
many —
readings they gave each story while I was writing
the book. The indefatigable Dionne saved me an enormous
amount of running around. A very big thanks to Sheetal
Mehta who, while still in India, helped so much. Many
thanks, too, to Rajesh Vora and Naresh Fernandes.
Smruti Koppikar's help was immeasurable. From day
one, she helped coordinate many things that I could not
handle from where I was. Films, tapes and other material
I needed at short notice, reached me wherever I was.
She
was a great help in data collection, and later in editing,
and also in organising a few thousand negatives and
several hundred photographs. Her ideas were always
useful and her inputs those of a de facto editor.
Bharati Sadasivam, while still in India, was a great
help. Many thanks to Chitra Sirur for all her assistance
and encouragement. I never had to worry much about the
statistical side of things. That was invariably taken care
of, as always, by my old friend Anoop Babani. Sanjay Shah
of Standard Photo Supply and the Fort Copying Centre
were a great help at all times.
One group of people and one individual had an
unspoken presence in all this throughout: my former
colleagues at Blitz, Bombay. And my old employer, R.K.
Karanjia, an editor who took as much pride in the
The official poverty line 445
1993-94 prices. In rural areas, Rs.229 per person a

it is
Appendix 1 month at 1993-94 prices. In the consumption basket

of
food items get a
The official poverty line the rural poor at this poverty line,
weightage of around 70 per cent. (NSS 48th Round.)
Let s
For those wanting that translated into English:
household of
say you are an Indian belonging to a rural
five members. If your total monthly
consumption is less
you are
In January 1979, a Task drew up a methodology
Force' than Rs. 1,145 a month (individual: Rs.229), then
for estimating the incidence of poverty
below the poverty line. Being slightly above that in
no way
thathas been used
by the Planning Commission ever since. That solves the problem of your poverty. But it
satisfies official
was the
Task Force on Projections of Minimum
Needs and —
criteria and places you above the line.
the Plaiming
Effective Consumption Demand’. In 1989, an expert group was set up by
The Task Force defined the poverty line as
the per Commission to study this methodology. In 1993, it
(Those
capita expenditure level at which the
average calorie submitted a report with several suggestions.
intake was 2,435 calories for a person in the Expert
the rural areas wanting more details can look at the Report of
Group on Estimation of Proportion and Number of
and 2,095 calories for urban areas. It took into Poor,
account Commission,
norms recommended by the Nutrition Expert Perspective Planning Division, Planning
Group of
1968. Using these, it estimated the average daily
per capita Government of India, New Delhi, June 1993).
requirements of people in rural and urban areas If the modified methods
suggested by the expert group
based on would
age, sex and occupational structures
of the population. were adopted, the number of people below the line
For convenience, it rounded off the calorie norms go up sharply. For instance, there was a huge
gap in the
to 2 400
calories per person per day for rural areas number of poor as estimated by the old methods and those
and 2, 100 per
^
used by the expert group. For 1987-88, the group s
day in urban areas. figure
The Planning Commission uses surveys conducted million, against the
by of those below the poverty was 312
237 million arrived at by the old methods. Now,
the government’s National Sample Survey the
Organisation
out the
(NSSO) every five years on the consumption
patterns of Planning Commission has simply thrown
movement of huge
over 500,000 households across India. From
these, that recommendations of the group. So the
expenditure group is selected whose spending
on food numbers of people above or below the ‘line can often bear
affords a rural person 2,400 calories a day and
an urban little relation to ground reality. It
can happen simply owing
person 2, 100 calories a day. So the per capita to changes in methods of calculation.
expenditure
of this group becomes the ‘line’. All groups whose
spen ding The expert group recognised the ‘continued necessity
and utility of poverty estimation'. But it drew attention
Is below this are below the poverty line. to
Currently the ‘line’ is defined for urban India as several limitations of the existing approach.
Some of the
observations made by the group were and remain
consumption worth Rs.264 per person a month valid.
at
446 Appendix 1
The official poverty line 447

Among them:
The first attempt at defining a poverty line in India
The poverty line provides the conceptual came in 1 962. A working group of eminent economists and
rationalisation
for loofcing at thepoor as a ‘category’ to be taken care social thinkers tried to draw up one after taking into
o rough targeted ameliorative programmes, account the recommendations of the Nutrition Advisory
ignoring
structural inequalities and other Committee of the Indian Council of Medical Research
factors which
generate, sustain, and reproduce
poverty*
(ICMR, 1958) on a balanced diet. The working group
It does not 'take into account items included such highly respected figures as Prof.
of social
consumption such as basic education and D.R.Gadgil, Dr. Ashok Mehta, Dr. V.K.R.V.Rao, Shriman
health,
drinking water supply, sanitation, Narayan, Anna Saheb Sahasrabudhe, B.N.Ganguli, Dr.
environmental
S n<âr<^ S e ^ c " ^
terms of normative requirements or P.S.Lokanathan, Pitambar Pant and M.R.Masani.
^ ’
effective access’. Why did such fine, upright people exclude things like
’ Th expenditure on health and education from the ‘national
P°verty line, quantified as a number, is
f
reductionist.
minimum they set up? Because they were sincere,
’
It does not capture

important aspects of idealistic citizens who believed the state had certain duties
poverty—ill health, low educational
attainments, to They believed, for instance, that the state was
fulfil.
geographical isolation, ineffective access
to law, bound by the constitution and other commitments to
powerlessness in civil society, caste and/or
gender provide its citizens both health and education.
based disadvantages.
The cruel joke is that three and a half decades later,
The head -count ratio based on the poverty
line ‘does not the state has provided none of these. Nor has it delivered
capture the severity of poverty in terms
of the poverty on many similar obligations. Yet, we stick on to the calorie
deficit (total shortfall from the poverty line) or norm and private consumer expenditure as if it covers
additionally the distribution of consumption everything that is important. But we remain silent on the
expenditure among the poor'.
obligations of the state towards its citizens.
• In a country of India’s size and diversity, a poverty line
based on aggregation at an all-India level ignores
state- specific variations in
consumption patterns
and/or prices.
The notion of ‘absolute poverty* is inadequate
because
‘relative poverty' Is also an equally
important aspect of
poverty and is, in fact, a determinant of
absolute poverty
at a given level of national income.
More generally, the
concepts of inequality and poverty, although
distinct,
need to be constantly viewed together as
closely
associated concepts.
The districts: A few indicators 449
them.
Appendix 2
District: Godda
The districts: A few indicators State: Bihar
Area: 2,110 sq. km
Forests: 239.34 sq. km
Net Sown Area: 966.09 sq. km
Net irrigated area: 108.97 sq. km
There a degree of overlap in the indicators of some of
is ,
Population: 8,61,180
these districts. This was unavoidable. Koraput,
Males: 4,48,070
Kalahandi, Ramnad, for instance, were all divided into two
or more districts in the last few years. Even Palamau was Females: 4,13,110
divided to make Garwha a new district. Godda emerged Female literacy: 1 8 per cent (Bihar 22.89 per cent,
from the division of the old Santhal Parganas. India 39.29 per cent)
The new districts do not as yet have their own Male literacy: 48.56 per cent (Bihar 52.49 per
cent, India 64.13 per cent)
gazetteers and basic published data on some aspects is
also lacking. So data between the old and new districts Per capita foodgrain production: 105 kg (Bihar
tends to overlap. But ‘Kalahandi’ here refers to the old, 118, India 173)
undivided unit, including Nuapada which is presently an District HQ not linked by rail
independent district. Koraput refers to the old, undivided I stayed in this district during September-
—
Koraput, including Malkangiri now a separate district. October, 1993
Secondly, for the same reasons, the base year for some
*
indicators tends to vary. While most indicators are pegged
on 1991, this is not strictly the case throughout. For
instance, per capita foodgrain production in the undivided District: Jhabua
Kalahandi is for 1 989*90. Therefore, the Orissa and India State: Madhya Pradesh
figures also vary. In the case of Malkangiri and Nuapada, Area: 6,782 sq. km
per capita foodgrain production figures are newer and are Forests: 1133.18 sq. km
for 1993-94. Net Sown Area: NA
Besides, census data district wise has been slow in Net irrigated area: 84.59 sq. km
coming on some aspects. The literacy figures reflect this Population: 11,30,400
in a couple of instances. At the bottom in each set, 1 have
Males: 5,71,760
tagged on the period during which I lived in that particular Females: 5,58,640
district. Having seen how a bit of this data is put together
Female literacy: 8.79 per cent (Madhya Pradesh
at the district level, I cannot but view a few of the indicators
28.85 per cent, India 39.29 per cent)
with some trepidation. Still, such as they are, I have given
Male literacy: 20.15 per cent (Madhya Pradesh
450 Appendix 2 The districts: A few indicators 451
58.42 per cent, India 64.13 per cent) Net irrigated area: 890 sq. km
Per capita foodgrain production: 148 kg (Madhya Population: 30,12,550
Pradesh 208 kg, India 173 kg) Males: 15,10,520
District HQ not linked by rail Females: 15,02,030
I stayed in this district during May- June 1994. Female literacy: 13.09 per cent (Orissa 34.68 per
Male literacy: 32.15 per cent (Orissa 63.09 per
District: Kalahandi cent, India 64.13 per cent)
State: Orissa Per capita foodgrain production: 193 kg (Orissa
Area: 11,772 sq. km 162 kg, India 173 kg)
Forests: 4,770 sq. km Period of stay: Overlaps with Malkangiri, my main
Net Sown Area: 5,890 sq. km focus in the area.
Net irrigated area: 620 sq. km
Males: 8,00,060
Females: 8,00,330 District: Malkangiri
Female literacy: 14.56 per cent (Orissa 34.68 per State: Orissa
cent, India 39.29 per cent) Area: 6,115.3 sq. km
Male literacy: 45.54 per cent (Orissa 63.09 per Forests: 1,553
cent, India 64.13 per cent) Net Sown Area: 1 ,500 sq. km
Per capita foodgrain production: 331.86 kg Net irrigated area: NA
(Orissa 253.03 kg, India 203.13 kg) Population: 4,22,000
(Base year for foodgrain production in old Kalahandi Males: 2,13.000
is different from others. Therefore, Orissa and India Females: 2,09,000
figures too are different. This figure is for 1989-90) Female literacy: 1 1 .69 per cent (Orissa 34.68 per
Period of travel here obviously overlaps with Nuapada, cent, India 39.29 per cent)
which was my major focus in the area. Male literacy: 28.22 per cent (Orissa 63.09 per
Per capita foodgrain production: 268 kg (Orissa
District: Koraput 201 kg, India 205)
State: Orissa District HQ not linked by rail
Area: 26,961 sq. km Stayed here during December 19 93 -January 1994.
Forests: 12,300 sq. km Visited nearby Rayagada region in June 1995.
Net Sown Area: 7,690 sq. km
District: Nuapada India 173 kg)

State: Orissa Stayed in the district during October-November 1 993.
Area: 3,407.5 sq. km Revisited it briefly in early May 1994.
Forests: 1,803 sq. km
Net Sown Area: 1,480 sq. km
Net irrigated area: NA
Population: 4,69,000 District: Pudukkottai
Males: 2,34,000 Nadu
State: Tamil
Females: 2,35,000 Area: 4,651 sq. km
Female literacy: 1 2.78 per cent (Orissa 34.68 per cent, Forests: 237 sq.km
India 39.29 per cent) Net Sown Area: 1987.40 sq. km
Male literacy: 42.31 per cent (Orissa 63.09 per cent, Net irrigated area: 1024.13 sq. km
India 64.13 per cent) Population: 13,27,150
Per capita foodgrain production: 235 kg (Orissa 201 Males: 6,61,780
kg, India 205)
Females: 6,65,370
District HQ not linked by rail
Female literacy: 43.62 per cent (Tamil Nadu 51 .33 per
Stayed here during February-March 1994. Returned cent, India 39.29 per cent)
to the district last in May- June 1995
Male literacy: 71.78 per cent (Tamil Nadu 73.75 per
Per capita foodgrain production: 184 kg (Tamil Nadu
124 kg, India 173 kg)
District: Palamau (Note: Literacy figures for the district date to the period
State: Bihar before the literacy movement here took off. Once the
Area: 12,749 sq. km movement had taken root, Pudukkottai was declared
Forests: 5,559 sq. km the first district outside of Kerala to have achieved 100
Net Sown Area: 2254.31 sq. km per cent literacy. I keep the old figures for contrast.
Net irrigated area: 480.76 sq. km The movement achieved its 100 per cent goal within
Population: 24,51,190 three years)
Males: 12,69,810 Stayed here during May 1993. Revisited the district in
Females: 11,81,380 April 1995.
Female literacy: 16. 15 per cent (Bihar 22.89 per cent,
India 39.29 per cent)
Male literacy: 44.80 per cent (Bihar 52.49 per cent.
India 64.13 per cent) District: Ramanathapuram (Ramnad)
Per capita foodgrain production: 61 kg (Bihar 1 18 kg, State: Tamil Nadu
Area: 4,232 sq. km Sources:

Forests: 45 sq. km Census data
Net Sown Area: 2060. 1 8 sq. km Profilesof Districts, November 1993, Centre for
Net irrigated area: 627.41 sq. km Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE), Bombay
Population: 11,44,040 State Statistical Handbooks
Males: 5,68,670 District Statistical Offices data
Females: 5,75,370 Other state government and official publications
Female literacy: 48.70 per cent (Tamil Nadu 51 .33 per
'
Male literacy: 74.76 per cent (Tamil Nadu 73.75 per
Per capita foodgrain production: 1 1 1 kg (Tamil Nadu
124, India 173)
Stayed here during June 1994.
District: Surguja
State: Madhya Pradesh
Area: 23,000 sq. km
Forests: 10,830 sq. km
Net Sown Area: 5,933.43 sq. km
Net irrigated area: 204.16 sq. km
Males: 10,64,630
Females: 10,18,000
Female literacy: 17.40 per cent Madhya Pradesh
(
28.85 per cent, India 39.29 per cent)

Male literacy: 42.13 per cent (Madhya Pradesh 58.42
per cent, India 64.23 per cent)
Per capita foodgrain production: 170 kg (Madhya
Pradesh 208 kg, India 173)
District HQ not linked by rail
Stayed here most of April and early May 1994.
Glossary 457
officer (BDO).
Glossary A circle is mostly a unit of revenue, sometimes
Circle:
coterminous in area with a block. In some states, could be
a unit of development below a block, with some revenue
functions.
Circle Karamchari: Post of worker attached to a
The meanings given to the words below are within the
circle. May do the ground level recording of land details in
context of their use in this book. Some of the lower level
his circle during a survey of land in the state or district,
government posts and institutions mentioned here might
hi Bihar, equivalent to patwari.
carry different functions even within the different states
Falia: Hamlet within a village, mainly in tribal villages.
covered in the reports.
Could be clan-based.
The words ‘adivasi’ and ‘tribal’ are used
interchangeably.
Gram Sabha: Sub-sect of a panchayat and
coterminous with a revenue village. The smallest unit of
I have also used the words ‘dalit’ and ‘harijan’
electoral democracy. (See also panchayat.)
interchangeably. In this case, the principle followed was
Jagir: A hereditary assignment of land.
to refer to people as they referred to themselves. So, in
Jatha: Procession. Often used to refer to long marches
different places, members of the scheduled castes are
or journeys undertaken by organised groups to press a
called dalits or harijans. In Tamil Nadu, for instance, quite
cause,
a few simply refer to themselves as ‘SC’. I’ve tried sticking
Khata: An individual’s account in village land records.
to that.
Lakdi: Firewood, timber, wood, stick.
Anganwadi: A centre under the Integrated Child
Mela: Fair.
Development Services (ICDS) scheme for children under
Mukhiya: Village headman. In Bihar, Mukhiya would
six years of age. Entrusted with nutritional care,
head the panchayat. (Also see sarpanch and panchayat.)
pre-school education, health and, in theory, maternal care
Padyatra: A walk or journey on foot. Undertaken as
as well.
part of a mission, to make a point, further a cause or
Balwadi: Largely, a pre-school day care centre. Some
crusade, as a demonstration.
functions vary from state to state. In some states works
Panchayat: Earlier, simply village council. Now often
for not much more than two hours a day.
comprises more than one village. Elected by direct voting.
Benami: A transaction where a major party, often a
Panchayat Bhavan: Panchayat office.
buyer or owner, remains anonymous. For instance, land
Patel: Chief of a village. The post was born of custom
owned by one person but held under the name of another,
or under fictitious names, would be a benami holding.
and is hereditary, but was sanctified by government. In
Block: Districts in India are divided into blocks. The
thenew panchayati raj dispensation, the patel will lose
block is the unit of development. The main officer

much of his power.
Patta: Title deed.
presiding over development here is the block development
Patwari: Keeper of village records. Paid by
458 Glossary
government. Called a village officer

(VO) in the South.
Sarpanch: Head of a panchayat.
In Bihar, the
mukhiya would head the panchayat. The References
sarpanch would,
however, have quasi-judicial
powers in an area
coterminous with that of the panchayat.
Tehsil / Taluka: Unit of a
district for revenue
administration. Normally, a taluka
is coterminous with a
block in geographical terms,
but not always strictly so The system of references in this book is slightly unusual,
Tehsildar. First original authority but easy to follow. The idea was to avoid burdening the
on revenue matters
withm a tehsil. Also keeper of land reader with footnotes and endnotes. The actual reports
records in his area
First person a villager
approaches on revenue matters. from the districts, in any case, did not need either. All
Tnekedar: Contractor. sources for those reports can be found within the text. And
Van Samiti / Van Suraksha anyway, district data is almost invariably governmental
Samiti: Forest
protection committee. few alternative sources exist. So the question of sourcing
Village Chowkidar or Kotwar: or referencing statistical material arose only for the essays
Paid a small sum in
cash or given a little land, or preceding some sections of the book.
both, this functionary
maintains the register of births and To make it simple, the reference note is preceded by a
deaths in a village. He
reports the arrival of new or telegraphic summary, usually within brackets, of the point
‘suspicious* characters in the
vdlage to the police thane. He or quote being referred to from the concerned essay. For
is paid by the revenue
department but reports to the police. instance, you want to know the source of the figures on
He could be
described as the lowest unit of the respiratory attacks, pneumonia and diarrhoea! episodes
police in India. Perhaps
the lowest link in the apparatus that you saw in the essay on health. The reference to that
of state.
will be found here under the section on health. And it will
Commonly used abbreviations be preceded by, in brackets, Diarrhoeal attacks,
BDO: Block Development Officer respiratory failure and pneumonia. The notes are divided
CAG: Comptroller & Auditor General in line with the sections of this book. Not all sections
C.O: Circle Officer needed them, though.
DPAP: Drought Prone Areas Programme
1RDP: Integrated Rural Development
Programme
NGO: Non-Governmental Organisation
PHC: Primary Health Centre The Trickle Up & Down Theory
(Or, health for the millions)
(Annual deaths and other figures relating to tuberculosis):

Figures from National Tuberculosis Institute.
460 References References 461
(Diarrhoeal death figures): “A Profile of Common

1
Diseases in \ information of India, Govt, of India, Central Board of Health
India Future, Vol.13, Winter 1984-85,
,
p. 43 .
Information, New Delhi, 1992.
(Diarrhoeal attacks, respiratoiy failure and

pneumonia)- From (pHCs handle only nine out of every hundred patients in rural
Combined Surveys ofARI, Diarrhoea and EPI, National
Institute areas): K. Seetha Prabhu & S. Chatterjee, Social Sector
of Communicable Diseases, New Delhi, 1988.
Expenditures, p.10.
(USAID: $325 million for population control):

Saroj Pachauri,
'Population & Planning Seminar, Vol. No.410,
1
New Delhi,
,
October 1993 This the Way We Go to School
is
p. 17.
(Getting educated in rural India)
(Spending on nutrition as percentage of GNP): K.
Seetha Prabhu
& S. Chatterjee, Social Sector Expenditures and Human
Development, Reserve Bank of India, Bombay,
1993, p. 13 (Quote on ‘efficiency’ of our school system): Anita Rampal,
Education For All, Rhetoric & Reality, The Madhya Pradesh
.
(Health spending as percentage of GDP,

India and other
Human Development Report 1995, MPHDR Project Office,
countries): Investing in Health, World
Development Report,
Bhopal 1995, p.30.
World Bank, Washington, 1993, Table A- 9
pp.210-21 1 , .
(Data on enrolment, facilities, infrastructure, distances): Fifth Ail

(Indian health spending as share of five year India Educational Survey, Selected Statistics, National Council
plans): Successive
five year plan documents, Govt, of
India. for Educational Research & Training (NCERT), New Delhi,
1989.
(Numbers of registered doctors and nurses): Health
Information
of India, Govt, of India, Central Board of Health (Education spending as percentage of plan outlays): Plan figures
Information,
New Delhi, 1992, p. 11 Later figure from Prime Minister
.
based on successive five year plan documents.
P.V.Narasimha Rao's speech, 14 September 1995.
(Spending comparisons—Tanzania, Kenya, Malaysia): Myron
(Gujarat & Maharashtra investment figures):
Prakash Karat, The Weiner, The Child and State in India, Oxford University Press,
Wages of Liberalisation Frontline, Madras, 18 November
1
,
Delhi, 1992, p.14.
1994, p. 120 .
(40 per cent of drop-outs cite economic reasons): Estimates from

(Kerala IMR and other figures): V.K. Ramachandran, ‘Kerala's Tilak & Varghese, 1992 and CMIE, 1992, cited in K. Seetha
Development Achievements: An Overview paper at 1 Prabhu & S Chatterjee, Social Sector Expenditures and Human
.
Indira
Development, Reserve Bank of India, Bombay, 1993, p. 10.
,
Gandhi Institute of Development Research, Bombay,

1995,
Tables 7 & 10. To appear as chapter in Sen &
Dreze,’ Indian
Development, Selected Regional Perspectives, Oxford (Female literacy in 123 districts): Anil Sadgopal, unpublished
University Press, Oxford & Delhi, 1996. background paper on education. New Delhi, 1995, p.72.
(IMR, Life expectancy figures for Gujarat & Maharashtra): Health (Actual gap between SC/ST literacy levels and others): Ibid.
(Reference to Srnrltl laws): Prabhavati Sinha, Smrtti Political and

and Rehabilitation in the Tribal Areas of Orissa, Indian Social
Legal System, A Socio-Economic Study, PPH, New Delhi, 1982
’ Institute, New Delhi, 1993, pp. 1-36.
pp. 75*76.
Vijay Paranjpye, Evaluating the Tehri Dam: An

Extended
(Drop-out rates for SC/ST students & comparisons): Sheel C.
Cost-Benefit Proposal, Indian National Trust for Art & Cultural
Nuna, chapter on Education & Social Development, In book,
Heritage, New Delhi, 1988.
Indian Society Today, edited by Muchkund Dubey. Har-Anand
publishers, New Delhi, 1995, pp.60-61. by Major
L.K. Mahapatra, ‘The Rehabilitation of Tribals Affected
Dams and Other Projects in Orissa’, in Aloysius P. Fernandez
(Sen & Dreze on literacy rates In India compared with other (ed.) Workshop on Rehabilitation of Persons
Displaced by
Quoted in the Pioneer, New Delhi, 19 August 1995, Development Projects, Institute for Social & Change
nations): Economic
Amartya Sen and Jean Dreze, India- Economic
p.12. Also see:
and MYRADA, Bangalore, 1990, pp.85-99.
Development & Social Opportunity, Oxford University Press
Delhi, 1995.
L.K. Mahapatra, Tribal Development in India, Myth & Reality,
Vikas, New Delhi, 1994.

(Non-Formal Education figures, MP & India): Anita Rampal,
Education For All, p.33.
Balaji Pandey, ‘Development Induced Displacement: An Agenda
for the Social Summit’, paper issued by Institute
for
(60 per cent of government expenses on schools going to private Socio-Economic Development, Bhubaneswar, 1995.
Institutions and extent of subsidies): K. Seetha Prabhu & S.
Chatterjee, Soctal Sector Expenditures and Human Jaganath Pathy, ‘Development Syndrome and Dispossession of
Development, Reserve Bank of India, Bombay, 1993, p.l 1.
the Defenceless’, paper at seminar on Development Projects
and Rehabilitation Displaced Persons, Institute for
of
(John K.Galbraith on Illiteracy and poverty): Quoted by A.K.
Socio-Economic Development, Bhubaneswar, 1994, pp.8-10.
Shiva Kumar, ‘India’s Development and the Well-Being of
Children', in book, Indian Society Today, p.290.
Report of the Commissionerfor Scheduled Castes and Scheduled
Tribes, 29th Report (1987-89), Govt, of India, New Delhi.
And the Meek Shall Inherit the Earth

(Until a project comes along) Official position on rehabilitation and norms thereof are
from:
Estimates of displacement in India are from: (Nearly 75 per cent ‘awaiting’ rehabilitation): National Policy Jor
Rehabilitation of Persons Displaced as a Consequence of
Walter Fernandes, Power and Powerlesness: Development Acquisition of Land, Ministry of Rural Development (third
Projects and Displacement of Tribals', Social Action, No.41, draft), Govt, of India, New Delhi. Main references and quotes
July-September, New Delhi, 1991, pp. 243-270. from pp.1-16.
Walter Fernandes & S. Anthony Raj, Development, Displacement Draft Recommendations of the Committee of Ministers for Laying
Down Norms for Land Acquisition and Rehabilitation, Wage

Govt of ,jj£QP failure of insurance claims): V.K. Ramachandran,
New Delhi, 1982.
India,
An Indian Case Study,
labour &
Unfreedom in Agriculture,
Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1990, p.246.
Office Memorandum on Land Acquisition and Rehabilitation of
Displaced Persons Due to Major Projects, Extracted from
Dept, of Public Enterprises, Bureau of
Ministry of Industry (Debt of small farmers and big businessmen):
Public Enterprises, New parliament debate and ministerial reply to question in Lok
Sabha, figures valid to March 1994. Also quoted in The Week,

26 February 1995, Cochin, p.33.
Figures on global displacement and
quotes from Cemea
are from:
—
(Manu, the Law Giver, on debt quote): George Buhlerg, The
Law
ofManu, Sacred Books of the East, edited by Max Mueller, Vol.
ichael M. Cemea, 25. Motilal Banarasidass, Delhi, 1984, pp.253-262 and p.382.
‘Understanding and Preventing
Impoverishment from Displacement (Reflections
on the State
of Knowledge)’, keynote opening
address. International
Conference on Development-Induced
Displacement & Everybody Loves a Good Drought
Impoverishment, University of Oxford,
1995, pp. 10 - 15 . (Water problems, real & rigged)
Michael M. Cemea, Putting People First,
World Bank Publication,
Oxford University Press, USA, 1991.
Maharashtra expenditure of Rs. 1,1 70 crores): Computed from
Michael M. Cemea, Internal Refugees official data, including budget figures and emergency
and Development-Caused Revenue, Forest, Finance departments.
PopuUztton Displacement, World expenditures of
Bank Discussion Paper from government pre-budget survey.
No.345, Harvard Institute for Irrigated area figures
International Development,
Harvard University, 1991. v
(Rs. 4,557 crores for Orissa drought): From Prime Minister’s
speech launching the project in Koraput, August 1 995. Figure

quoted again in the Times of India, 16 March 1996, p.8.
Lenders, Losers, Crooks & Credit
(Usury, debt & the rural Indian)
Figures on blocks are official and from the concerned
DPAP
departments dealing with them in the respective states for
which numbers are given.
™-Indta Debt S, Investment Survey,
Crovt. of India.
Rainfall figures are from Collectorates and district statistical
offices. Long-term rainfall data from district gazetteers.

(Misuse of IRDP funds): Report
of the Comptroller & Auditor
General, Govt, of India, New Delhi,
1985, pp.14-18. (Kalahandi twenty-year rainfall analysis): Jagdish Pradhan,
’Drought in Kalahandi: The Real Story’, Economic & Political
(100 towns accounting for 65 per cent of Weekly, Bombay, 29 May 1993, pp. 1084-88.
all credit). R.P.Gurpur
Banking Blues*. Seminar, No.395, New
Delhi, July 1992^
For a discussion of rainfall, sugar cane and crop problems in
Maharashtra, see: D.N. Dhanagre, 1992 Drought In (Tribal organisations declare war on NGOs): Two groups,
Maharashtra, Misplaced Priorities, Mismanagement of Water Kandhmal Vikash Parishad and Anchalika Vikash Samity,
Resources*, Economic Apolitical Weekly, Bombay, 4 July 1992, issued a declaration to the effect, jointly in late 1994 and again
pp. 1421-1425. Also H.M. Deserda, ‘Is Only Nature to Blame in early 1995. The latter version was titled: ‘Promotion of
for This Drought?' The Independent, Bombay, 9 May 1992, p.4. sexual exploitation, anti-social action and corruption in the
name of a comm on action programme in Kandhmal’.
Poverty, development & the Press (Quote from Reuters correspondent’s book): S.H.S. Merewether,
A Tour through the Famine Districts of India. A.D.Innes & Co.,
London, 1898, p.ll.
(Land distribution figures . . . 2.6 million acres still to be
distributed): Eighth Five Year Plan document.
(New priorities for food department . . . ‘participation in

international conferences'): Official notification,
Doc.No.CD*163 / 95, Rashtrapati Bhavan, New Delhi, 8 March
1995, p.6.
(Expert group figure of 39 per cent below poverty line): Report of

the Expert Group on Estimation of Proportion and. Number of
Poor, Perspective Planning Division, Planning Commission,
New Delhi, June 1993.
(Drop in per capita availability of grain): Economic Survey. Govt,

of India, New Delhi, 1995. And analysis of Eighth Plan
Mid-term Appraisal (MTA). Figure up to 1994 also quoted in
Indian Express, Bombay, 21 August 1995.
(Irrelevance of PDS & RPDS—quote): K.R. Venugopal, ‘Poor

Strategies: Rising Foodstocks, but No Nutrition Security’,
Frontline, Madras, 28 July 1995, p.98.
(World Bank on NGO involvement in Bank projects): World Bank

News, Vol. XIII, No. 35, Paris, 22 September 1994, p.5.
(Nepal NGO-citizens ratio and funding figures): Chandrani

Ghosh, ‘Slipping into an aid trap’, Business Standard,
Calcutta, 22 March 1995, p.12.

Drought Sainath Text

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Drought Sainath Text

Uploaded by

Document Information

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Drought Sainath Text

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

'

* often ludicrous, to do something for them. The people

piece, of how people live,

— Pot nek French *

L a stinging anatomy of heafth and educational

judged account, bristling with vigorous humanity.. 1

— The Ada on Sunday

Cover photograph fay Amil PteifiTchcn

Cover design* by KovFtQ DuFIq

A PENGUIN ORIGINAL HA7 *r *

Palagummi Sainath is a Mumbai- based freelance

Sainath has been a visiting lecturer in journalism,

110 017, India

Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632,

First published by Penguin Books India 1996

Copyright © P. Sainath 1996

Photographs by the author

All rights reserved

Typeset in Bookman and Helvetica by Digital Technologies and Printing Solutions,

Still Crazy After All These Years 1

This Is the Way We Go to School 45

Beyond the Margin 133

Lenders, Losers, Crooks & Credit 193

Crime & No Punishment 231

Despots, Distillers, Poets & Artists 271

Everybody Loves a Good Drought 315

With Their Own Weapons 371

complete work on two districts I had chosen in Uttar

women, development and the like. It didn’t work. Some or

A brief introduction to the absurd

NUAPADA, (Orissa): Mangal Sunani was thrilled. The

scheme, were committed to their purpose. The idea was to

Even as the Samanwita project was on, some of those involved

under the Pahadi Korwa project that Ramdas’s road came

announcing the scheme.’ Almost as an afterthought, Ramdas mentions that his

‘Ifthe money were simply put into bank fixed deposits,

‘We cannot recognise your brother as an adivasi,’ said

they already have over the real tribals ensures this.

for the issue of caste certificates. Anyone producing a patta

Or, health for the millions

HE PROBLEM with the plague of 1994, really, was

to urban slums. Plague germs are notorious for their

gave the world an apocalyptic vision of the BlackDeath mowing

Tuberculosis claims over 450,000 Indian lives each year, nearly

centre page. Or, one of those anguished editorials (hastily

that of a practising doctor. These can be had for a modest

In the nearby dalit colony, Dilbasiya Devi and her

quacks and see the results. Meanwhile, we continue to

wisely made than part of the

Bhoden block, Ghasiram Majhi, sarpanch of Bhaisadani,

years in some cases,’ said Ghanshyam Bithria, who leads

the teams that went to Birighat wanted to learn also remains

of the original storywas challenged. Other journals had picked

of policies breaking down even the little access that millions of

Getting educated in rural India

6 ’-"'vNLY THREE stories in the section on education? That’s

did mention primary schools in the poorest districts. Mostly they

carry a flavour of the education India gives her people.

finish high school. As Dr Anita Rampal of the Bhopal-based NGO,

facilities takes to run a school. The NCERT’s Fifth Survey found

A PENGUIN ORIGINAL HA7 r