India ’s ancient forest homes to the state capital. Surrounded by their children, woman in colourful saris carry babies and men brandish placards, all the while chanting words of anger and despair. Supported and coordinated by the grass roots movement, Ekta Parishad, meaning solidarity forum, the tribals have, on several occasions, marched to the government buildings where they wait till the Chief Minister listens to their demands. Through peaceful direct action, their is a glimmer of hope that the tribals will finally acquire their land rights papers

The Indian states of Chhattisgarh and Orissa have a high concentration of tribal groups who, despite statutory laws to protect their ancient rights to forest land, continue to be evicted. Their forest have been exploited since the British first felled their trees, primarily for railway sleepers but today that process is accelerating; this time in the name of ‘progress’.

India ’s economic development appears to be focused in the tribal’s forests. Helped by loans from the World Bank and foreign governments including the UK to promote India ’s development project Vision 2020, the Ministers of Orissa and Chhattisgarh are welcoming the exploitation of their forests and minerals. Timber extraction, like bamboo to make paper, and massive plantations of teak and eucalyptus are replacing virgin forests. Despite the law that prevents outsiders buying tribal land, open cast mines like Stirlite, a subsidiary of the UK based company, Vedante, is extracting bauxite from the top two hundred yards of the tribal’s sacred hills, destroying the streams, contaminating ground water and building a massive factory over several miles of tribal land and villages.

As a local farmer said, “ I will get compensation but the tribals have no land rights so will get nothing”. To irrigate large farms down stream and provide energy for processing, the government is building a massive net work of dams again drowning hundred of acres of invaluable tribal land without compensating the landless farm labourers and tribals without their land rights papers.

They are also planning to consolidate land for large foreign owned agri businesses like Cargill from the US , to cultivate and process, for example, edible oil for India ’s cities and export to the west.

In other words, on the alter of economic globalization, India is sacrificing it’s cultural diversity, ancient forests and wildlife, soil, streams and small scale self sufficient farm communities. Some of the now destitute framers and tribals will be India ’s cheap labour pool. Good news for progress of course.  What good are self sufficient communities when progress is measured in terms of GDP I.e. annual financial transactions? Destitute farmers are also great news for India ’s industry. With no other income, they are forced to work for virtual slave labour wages which will give companies that vital competitive edge in the global economy. Bad news, however, for India ’s tribals and small farmers who have cared for India ’s forests, wildlife, soil and streams for thousands of years. No one asks them how they wanted to be developed.

Since leaving their traditional hunter gatherer lives in the remotest forests, the tribals have come down to the lowlands where, for many years, they have been supplementing their forest harvesting with agriculture by clearing small patches of forest.

In the name of conservation, India ’s dwindling forests are increasingly the preserve of the Forest Department apparently to protect wild life but more often to harvest the virgin forests and replace them with profitable plantations. 

Recently, boosted by a World Bank loan for forest conservation, the tribals have come up against massive opposition from the Forest Department for clearing land. The courts either delay or withhold giving their land rights papers which entitle them to compensation. The lucky few find work as farm labourers or government road builders. Others find gruelling work in factories in the city. Unused to such conditions many return determined to fight for their land.

In the ancient forest of Akchanicmar , in Chhattisgarh, 52 tribal villages were submerged by the Gonga dam and many more have been moved for a tiger reserve and monoculture plantations. They also lost the right to harvest bamboo, invaluable, not least for house building and weaving baskets to sell in the local market. They are not even benefiting with jobs on the projects. The villagers say that bamboo or mining contractors prefer to employ people from another state so they have less security to object to inadequate conditions and pay.

The Forest Department divides village communities by paying a small number of the different tribes to guard their plantations.

Recently, a small group of landless Baiga tribal labourers, from Putputa village, in Chhattisgarh, planted a variety of useful trees and cultivated on untended forestry department land.

The ‘encroachers’ were frequently told to move out and their huts burnt. A widow described the day a mob of tribals burnt their homes and shouted “kill the Baiga”. Her husband was beaten to death by a mob of tribal goons. The murderers drove off in land rovers while the tribals ran to the police station carrying the dead Baiga on their shoulders. There the police refused to register the complaint and denied that he was murdered. This has only strengthen the widows resolve “I will not leave this forest; they will have to kill me like my husband. I will not leave the forest”.

A Gandhian intellectual and philosopher, Rajgopal, set up Ekta Parishad to co ordinate local tribal leaders in their fight for land rights. They are demanding land rights papers to prove the tribals have been cultivating the land for many years. Only with these papers will the tribals get adequate compensation if they are forced to leave their land. They are also demanding land for the landless and that India ’s land ceiling act, which limits the amount of land for one family to 25 acres, should be reduced to 5 acres. They say that five acres is adequate to sustain a family and  that the 25 acre limit is being widely abused. Many land owners take additional 25 acre plots in the name of their wife, children, maids and workers, even their dog!

True to Gandhi’s philosophy, Ekta Parishad is demanding village revitalization and self sufficiency. They want to help framers earn a decent livelihood from their forest products and crops by protecting their local market economy from artificially low world commodity process. Along with population growth, mechanization is also depriving millions of landless of jobs forcing them into urban slums.

With the global development paradigm deeming small farmers to be inefficient and backward, in India and countries across the globe, millions people are being uprooted from their rural livelihoods. The UN says that today, across the world, 1 billion people live in slums and that if trends continue, by 2020 it will be 3 billion.

Contrary to western thinking, rural to urban migrants do not leave their land in search of the bright lights. Few dream of living in one of the new high rises of owning a car or television. In fact, quite the reverse, Many of Mumbai’s shanty dwellers dream of returning to their land.

Without money to bribe or contacts to help, many never move from their hovel along main city roads as jobs are too infrequent even if educated. Many of the young have given up trying to find work turning instead to crime and alcohol. They say that farm prices are too low, tractors have taken their jobs and droughts have killed their animals. After one generation in town the farm skills and respect for the land will be lost forever.

Can we depend on large foreign agri businesses to care for the soil, the water and plant varieties to withstand drought and disease?

Will the children of the future know how to care for the natural environment?

Is the education curriculum one that cherishes their rural skills, the interconnectedness of the community and respect for the land along side learning literacy and numeracy?

The teacher will reflect his urban culture and, as the highest paid in the village, command respect. He tells the children, “If you work hard, you will have a better life in the city, where you can buy a home and car.” The school books describe modern technology and city life to compliment all the ads they see on the school TV. There is seldom any mention of urban hardship, dependency and insecurity. Nor of the respect that the middle class Indian’s have for farmers skills in house building, growing processing their own chemical free food, their freedom from dependency, the beauty, and tranquillity of village life. An urban middle class woman lamented that both she and her husband had to work so she had no time to look after her children. That their tiny home had no room for their extended family and they lived under the constant fear of crime.

Who is really richer; the self sufficient tribal farmer with not a penny in the bank or the urban employee struggling to pay his way. Are we the people asked if we want to be developed?

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