Whatever I say here, is born of three decades of day-to-day experience of India's poor. And, amongst them, India's tribals share a worse fate. Theirs is a faceless existence. They are in India from ancient times, for thousands of years, yet the mainstream India has continually refused to recognise them. In the tribal society there is no caste division, no dowry system, divorce and widow remarriage is socially sanctioned. They are, after centuries of oppression and nneglect, still so civilized! Yet we have simply refused to recognise their worth, have made them bonded slaves in the unorganised sectors, have evicted them from land wherever we have founded industries, or built dams.
Having been denied fundamental human rights, they have joined the floating population of the other poor who follow the contractors and go anywhere for a pittance. The mighty tribal culture, their fantastic dances, music, painting and wood cuttings are lifted by middlemen for a handful of coins and sold at high prices at home and abroad. The artisans receive next to nothing.
In Indian history they are seldom mentioned. So many mighty tribal peasant rebellions against the British in the 18th and 19th centuries, never got a mention in the history of the Indian Freedom Struggle. The leaders of the nation, like Gandhi, Puley or Ambedkar seldom mentioned the tribals whose very existence was threatened under mainstream onslaught.
And, to the caste hierarchy, the tribals were, and are, still untouchables. The Central and state governments make special budgets for their development. Such schemes are made by people who know next to nothing about the tribals. One instance, KALAHANDI of Orissa. Famine and starvation death among Kalahandi tribals are quite regular, yet Kalahandi is fertile, grows regular crops. Of course the tribal land has been usurped by non-tribals. During famine the tribals, government will say, are supplied with rice and wheat. Yet, no one ever made any effort to know the truth about this disjunction between a good harvest and starvation deaths of the tribals. For the Kalahandi tribals like many other tribal groups, the staple food is not rice or wheat, but according to government jargon "lesser food grains" like "Marwa, Kurthi, Kodo" etc. Tribal land gone, they cannot grow what they eat, so they starve. The "KORKU" tribe of Dt. Amravati of Maharashtra, are a forest tribe. They were food-gatherers. The rich teak forest, their home, has been depleted. Plenty has been written about them. Many good organisations and persons are sending them processed and unprocessed food in mountains. The Korkus do not touch such food. They scour food from the vanishing jungles. This tribe is shrinking in size, losing weight and 2/3 years ago a bureaucrat summarised the Korku-question in one sentence, "This tribe is congenitally unfit to survive."
Take the Korku as the representative of Indian tribals, and the bureaucrat as Indian mainstream. The gulf is unbridgeable. And think of the big industries in pre and post-independence India. In each case there was large scale tribal land eviction and the tribals received neither land, nor money in exchange. From the time of the Tata Iron & Steel factory in British India, down to Narmada dams, the tribals are distant spectators. Their role is to see how their land is making India's wealth.
Yet, the Indian tribes constitute 8% of India's population, according to 1991 census. This too is misleading, as the last listing of tribal groups was done in 1976. Anthropological Survey insisted that there are 635 tribes in India. Yet Govt. of India recognised only 426 as tribes. 209 tribes were, and still are left out. If the total population of 635 tribes was counted, the percentage would go up.
In India, the largest democracy, this goes on.
I have spoken about the tribals, so that I can speak, in this gathering, of the most heinous crime towards a few crores of people, India has committed. India is caste divided, upper castes and lower castes. The tribals are lower than the Hindu lowest class. I am not counting the privileged groups or individuals from the tribals. Government of India's sole drive is to "develop" the tribals, so that they can become like the "main stream." The privileged tribals have become like the mainstream where they have not received equal-acceptance and also, have become "Detribed."
And the tribals along with non-tribals, victimise the denotified tribes. These tribes, "denotified" ones, have one birth year: 1871. Which country has millions of people, in 1998, who were born in 1871? India has. Let me explain :
1. In 1871, the British Government of India "notified"certain tribes as "criminals" and passed the notorious "Criminal Tribes Act of 1871." Such people were notified, who, according to the British, were nomadic cattle grazers, wandering singers, acrobats, etc. Also those who resisted the British aggression from time to time. The logic was simple. These people lived in forests, or were nomads. Only the criminals would do this. As Indians follow caste professions, these mysterious (to the British) people too are hereditary criminals. Thus history's most heinous crime was perpetuated in this Act.
From 1871-1944 this Act was amended, new areas and new communities were roped in. The itinerant traders lost their livelihood with the introduction of railways, roads and outsiders entering their lives.
In 1952, Government of India officially "denotified" the stigmatised ones, without making any provisions for their livelihood.
In 1959, Government of India passed the "Habitual Offender's Act" which is not much different from the "Criminal Tribes Act, 1871."
From 1961, Government of India, through the state machineries is publishing state-wise lists of "Denotified and Nomadic Tribes."
The police officers posted in any state come to know who are the denotified ones. Why are the denotified communities those born in 1871? Because, between 1871 and 1952, certain communities came to be known as criminals. The local people and the police killed them, tortured them, hounded them like beasts of prey. And, after independence, police and the political and non-political power wielders engaged them in criminal activities. They were forced to rob and steal. The police and the stolen good receivers took it all, and often had them killed. Their stigma is the curse of their life. All over India, the denotified communities are jailed, mob-lynched, tortured to death in police lock-ups. Worst of all, even India's other tribals treat the denotified tribes as "expendable ones."
My home state is West Bengal. There are three such tribes there. In 1977, the Left-Front was elected. From 1977 till date, a Left Front Government is in power. The 3 denotified tribes are Lodha, Kheria Sabar and Dhikaru. In other states, killing of denotified tribes is a regular affair. In West Bengal, where the picture is better, I cite some incidents :
1. Between 1979 and 1982, 42 denotified Lodha tribals were mob-lynched not for crimes committed, but for being born as "Lodhas."
2. Between 1960 and 1998, more than 50 Kheria Sabars have been killed by the police, or mob-lynched.
In the Lodha cases, police took no action.
1996-1998: Atrocities on denotified communities :
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February 98 - West Bengal. Budhan Sabar was tortured by police from 10-2-98 to 16-2-98. On 17-2-98 he was taken to prison, where he died. A case was filed in the Calcutta High Court, which was concluded in July.
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June 98 - Maharashtra. Pinya Hari Kale was killed in police custody in BARAMATI. He belonged to the denotified Pardhi community.
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May 98 - Maharashtra. Ramesh Kale of denotified Pardhi community was killed in police custody of FALTAN.
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May 98 - Maharashtra. At Doki village in Usmanabad district, a Pardhi woman was raped by police and her husband's genitals were crushed.
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October 98 - West Bengal. Mathur Sabar of denotified Kheria Sabar community was speared to death by the villagers.
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June 97 - West Bengal. Lalit Sabar of denotified Kheria Sabar community was sent for some day-labour job. Then he was tied to a tree and his right arm was chopped off.
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August 98 - Maharashtra. The railway police attacked, at Diksal village a group of Pardhi fishermen, women and children. A pregnant woman lost her child as she was kicked on the stomach.
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August 98 - Rajasthan. Alice Garg, a social worker, runs hostels for the children of the denotified Sansi community. The State Government is victimising her. She has been framed in many false criminal cases and has been forced to go underground.
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October 98 - Bombay. Raja Rathor of Ahmedabad had gone to Bombay. He belonged to the denotified CHHARA community. Railway police dragged him to lock up. He died. No details available.
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November 98 - Baroda. A man from the Bajania denotified community was lynched for stealing a gourd.
That the 1871 Act is kept alive by the Government of India is proved by countless instances. In Maharashtra I have sen nomadic denotified communities that sell herbal medicines fleeing from village to village as they have to obtain passes from the police to stay in one place for 4 days only. About 6 years ago, some women, belonging to the denotified "SANSI" community were arrested by police and the word "THIEF" was branded on their foreheads with hot iron. Only in October'98, a popular TV Channel showed the denotified destitute Pardhi children on Bombay streets. The commentator said, "They look innocent, but they are Pardhis. Born criminals."
I have been fighting for the denotified communities of West Bengal for 15 years. I write, I fight the authorities, try to make Indians aware that this monstrosity of keeping a section of Indian people branded as born criminals is an unforgivable sin. But very few truly understand the tribals, even fewer know the word "denotified." Yet, if one asks someone in Delhi, "Who are the worst criminals here?" They will say, "Why, the Sansis and Baoris of course!" Thus every state has pat replies to such questions.
Thus India is keeping the colonial legacy by treating hundreds of communities as born criminals. With India's history of post-independence decadene it was bound to be like this. When independence came, land reform was introduced to two states, West Bengal and Kerala. The feudal land system was allowed to stay in rest of India. A feudal land system nurtures a feudal value system. India's feudals were very loyal to the British. Loyalty to the colonial legacy still persists.
That is why these denotified communities are still under a death sentence. A Budhan Sabar is killed because he is born to the Sabar community. In the old India, only the upper castes had right to literacy. The lowly born ones lived outside the city. The denotified ones live outside the society. They have no right to anything. I have come to this august convention only to tell the world, that in India, crores of Indians are still treated as born criminals. At the end of the century, they are denied all human rights because of their birth. The world should know that it is time, from the Denotified Communities' Name, the words, "Year of birth: 1871" were removed once and forever.
Mahasweta Devi
March 2002
Mahasweta Devi, the reknowned Bengali writer and activist, has won the Jnanpith Award, the Ramon Magsaysay Award, and the Padmashree. Her support for indigenous communities in India has been long-standing and immense, she was instrumental in founding the Denotified Tribes Rights Action Group (DNT-RAG). This article on India Together previously appeared in Budhan, the newsletter of the DNT-RAG.