“JHARKHAND is going for Panchayat Raj”

Letter to the Adivasi People,

Please listen to the heart’s deep anguish of a sincere fellow Adivasi committed totally to the community cause. I have mustered enough courage I believe to share my reflections because you have been very close to me in my trying moments and I have survived. I still hesitate to express the groaning of my heart which has found sporadic expression in the random social interventions for the past several years without having any power or position of any kind. But I have counted on the goodness and sagacity of your heart and therefore dare to speak up even though I may sound like an odd man out of place since as you put it I belong to that less than one percent group which is opposed to the forthcoming Panchayat Elections which was earlier inspired by the central legislation PESA of 1996 and prepared for by the state legislation of JPRA of 2001 and 2003. I am fully aware again as you have informed that more than 99% of the Adivasi community is for the Panchayat Elections. However whether one is in the majority or in the minority truth is always the truth and so I decide not to be with the majority this time. In my humble opinion opting for the representative form of democracy at the grassroots level as proposed by the present Aryan form of Panchayati raj will not be helpful for our mosaic composition of the Jharkhand population and will definitely prove to be suicidal for our Adivasi society.

Let us look at the present electoral arrangements. In the scheduled tribal areas only Adivasi MPs and MLAs are elected because of the reservation policy to protect their interest not only because they are socio-economically weak but because they have a constitutional right of being the first occupants of the area. But as we are witnessing once elected, these Adivasi representatives are always surrounded by the diku sycophants and practically work only for them. My reading and it is apparent to all that such behaviour of our elected representatives is due to the belief that is not the Adivasi community but the diku money that gives them political personality. Hence their constant worry is not the welfare of the poor Adivasi community but maintaining their seats in the next election in which they will have to fight their own Adivasi political rivals. Naturally they seek the support of the dikus and stoop to any even unscrupulous means to remain in power. The result of being elected in this way is to sit on back benches and keep mum on Adivasi issues because of them have already a lot to cover up. They are constantly wary of their fellow rivals, become outright anti-intellectuals lest they discover the truth and face criticism. Their political lethargy is easily compensated for by a free social intercourse with the dikus, feeling great in their company and failing to realize that they are appearing stark naked with nothing on their own. My question is will the Adivasi pramukhs, mukhyas and sirpanchs be different from the present Adivasi MLAs and MPs under the JPRA Panchayat raj with unlimited room for manipulation by the dikus. We must opt for a system of government where the Adivasi leaders will have to be accountable to their own community. And that is possible only if they’ll have to depend for their leadership entirely on their own community. What is happening today under our very nose is that the dikus in the name of democracy are able to infiltrate into Adivasi areas in order to dilute the population composition changing its ratio to tilt in their own favour.

To hold Panchayati elections in the scheduled areas is unconstitutional and that is why no election was held in Jharkhand for the past many years. The PESA of 1996 and later JPRA of 2003 are Aryan devices to infiltrate at the grassroots level and take control of the Adivasiland. Even if all the posts of local heads are reserved for the Adivasis according JPRA, survival and success will not be ensured to the Adivasi community for the simple reason that there is no political autonomy. I still opt for our age-old traditional form of participatory tribal self-rule up to the district level and a federation of all these autonomous districts at the greater Jharkhand level. Only this will create self-confidence and provide the much needed boost to Adivasi pride ensuring of ideal form of education (CBSE or IE: International Education), distinct cultural identity and sustainable economy backed by sound system of revenues accruing from land, forest and mineral resources. Development has to be of the people first and the area they occupy. It is this that our fellow tribals of Northeast are enjoying because of their autonomy mechanism with traditional self-rule. When such possibilities are offered by traditional tribal self-rule why opt for panchaytiraj?

The government has to provide us with the autonomy that is long overdue because we Adivasis are the first occupants of Chotanagpur. It is only on this principle of being the first occupants that nations exist the concept of tribal areas are entertained all over the world. The sad part of the Adivasi history is that the Adivasis were ruled by the non-tribal petty kings at the time of India’s independence in 1947 and these unlawful Maharajas were consulted when the Indian Union came into existence in 1950 and the Adivasis unjustly ruled by the dikus then, were never consulted even though the freedom movement against the British was started and spearheaded by the Chotanagpur Adivasis. Other Indians entered the movement at a later stage. It can be safely stated that the Indian elite joined the movement only when they saw that they themselves could be rulers once the British left India. The Adivasis resented the step-motherly treatment at the hand of the Independent India. Jharkhand movement was an expression of this. Unfortunately, the movement for and final carving out of Jharkhand from only Bihar proved to be an exact repeat of what happened to the Adivasis when India gained its independence. The Adivasis fought and won the war but the booty went to the Biharis. This repeat is because we Adivasis are disorganized and our leaders lack clear-cut vision for our Adivasi society. I do not condemn all the dikus as bad in fact the British did understand the plight of the Adivasis of Chotanagpur and were sympathetic towards them. It is seen in a number of legislations like Wilkinson’s Rule, Santhal Pargana Tenancy Act, and Chotanagpur Tenancy Act etc. in order to safeguard the inalienable rights of the Adivasis over the land of Chotanagpur. Unfortunately these legislative measures never worked for the benefit of the Adivasis because while for the obvious reasons non-Adivasi leaders were bent on making these measures ineffective the Adivasi leaders never cared to study or understand even what is provided in the Indian Constitution viz. that Panchayat system cannot be imposed in Scheduled Areas. This is the reason for the confusion of the present Adivasi leadership too. We cannot blame the common mass for the leadership failure. It is the leaders who are to give shape to the political future of the people who are like water which gets its shape from the container. The sad reality of our community leaders is that they suffer from the dangerous propensity to lean on the outsiders and survive on borrowed brain. They are lavish on dikus and their political heirs are invariably children not their own. From the known history ever since our king Mudra Munda preferred a foundling diku, Phani Mukut Rai to his own son to succeed him on the throne, the political legacy of the Adivasis has gone only to non-tribals.

There can be no Adivasi culture and tradition without the backbone of traditional self-rule systems like Parha-patti (Oraon), Manki-munda (Ho/Munda), Manjhi-parganeit (Santhal) and Doklo-sohar (Kharia) etc. Without these time-tested age-old traditional forms of governments the Adivasi society will not survive. And wherever such arrangements are made tribal ethnic groups have managed with effectiveness to preserve and promote their typical tribal language, culture and lifestyle. The best example immediately comes to my mind is the Khasis in front of me and also the indigenous peoples far away in Canada. While the whole world under the U.N auspices stands for providing autonomy to the tribals anywhere in the world, the Adivasi leadership in Jharkhand is preparing to push its people to the Indian mainstream and drown them midstream by opting for the Aryan model of Panchayati Raj.

Representative form of democracy is the rule of the majority and so the minority groups like the Asurs, Birhors and Korwas who are few in number and scattered, will be swallowed up by dominant groups in majority rule and their voice will never be heard in the political circles even at the local level. The Aryan model of Panchayati Raj has no heart for the weak. It will promote multi-party democracy invading sound inbuilt systems of self-rule pitting village vs village or even family vs family yes members of the same family against each other due to their different party affiliations. This is the reason why in the Northeast the government has given the tribals protection against the non-tribals by arranging autonomous district councils where only tribals have the voting and decision making rights. According to this system of autonomy the tribal community owns all lands and forests (except those under reserved forests) and the minerals below the surface. It is because of this arrangement the tribals of Northeast are able to enjoy true freedom and are on a par with any other developed communities in the world.

For me involvement in politics should be always for the empowerment of the Adivasi community and not for promotion of the so-called suitable candidates in view of some rainy day. In other words, we should be involved in people’s politics and never in party politics and work towards carving out tribal autonomy for development at people’s own pace and genius enabling them to become ever more creative and innovative in all spheres of life. If our community is not empowered politically all our social interventions are useless and I am afraid soon people will begin to question also the Church leadership. What more the very existence of the Church will be at stake because the Adivasis will be no more in Chotanagpur. I am literally shocked hearing views circulated even in some Church circles that in the traditional system of self-rule a single post (that of the pahan) cannot be held by the Christians and so traditional self-rule is to be considered obsolete and discarded in favour of Aryan (diku) rule by through Panchayati Raj. If Panchayat elections are held under PESA and JPRA our natural traditional village set up will be destroyed because of the Panchayat and Ward demarcation. Panchayats will vie with one another in setting up national and multinational factories because funds will flow like running waters. Panchayats will not be able to resist the onslaught of the mega-projects of the government and where will our uneducated and technically unskilled people go and what will the heads of Zeela Parishad, Block and Panchaayats do even if they are Adivasis because of reservation but the local bodies they are heading have crafty non-Adivasi members because of the unqualified nature of local bodies based on adult franchise? Let us not forget the voter list of the local bodies includes the names also of non-Adivasis who are expert at manipulation. Further the present Panchayat system with adult franchise will only encourage influx of non-tribal population in order to have greater control of the political power as has happened after the creation of Jharkhand. This will further dilute the population composition and tilt the political ratio in favour of the dikus and the inevitable process of de-scheduling areas and removing reservations will start. In that situation the very survival of the Adivasis will be a question.

As I conclude this letter I am suffering from nostalgia of what was being told when I was very young. Id phalna garhi katath(wooded forest tract) hike aur ad a paddatarhi hike. Once there was a fellow feeling among the members of the village and among the villages of the community. It was community that mattered. Everything and every member were accountable to the community but today they things of the past. And so we have to create a system where our Adivasi leaders are accountable to the Adivasi community and community is supreme. This is possible only if we go for the traditional system of self-rule as practiced by our fellow tribals in the Northeastern states where the non-tribals are allowed to stay by they have no say in decision making. I am dreaming of the Ancestral domain. Will that come? It all depends on you, the leaders of the Adivasi community.

Johar