“Water water everywhere...” What the fuss does that mean?

Portion of Kangsabati river barrage.

The pictorial Mukutmanipur dam which halts water flow of the river Kumari and Kansabati and irrigates parts of Bankura, Paschim Medinipur, Purba Medinipur and Hooghly provides one of examples of the bitter and unreported experiences of what happens in neighbouring villages of large scale dam constructions. People a couple of generations ago have seen villages submerged under water, large scale evacuation process and irrevocable loss of social and emotional bonding.

What did they get in return is perhaps the most vital question. To understand this question I have been roaming around villages of Dhagora, Peerless para, Ekkaduar, Nadupara, Jambedia and Barghutu. Each of the villages fall under Gorabari Gram Panchayat which is now controlled by the Trinamool Congress. Mostly Tribal people like Santals, Bhumijs and a few families of Mundas occupy these villages. Some Scheduled Caste groups like Teli, Lohar and Bene live in some of the villages in the region.  While the dam is filled with water regulated by the irrigation department to irrigate different parts of the neighbouring districts people in the adjascent villages keep depending on the rainwater to cultivate.  Excepting the village Jambedia the rest of the villages cultivate a single crop and the amount they got is just enough for preparing next year’s seeds and providing their family a couple of rice meals throughout the year.

What makes the difference?

The difference which will be discussed soon is solely an outcome of positional advantage of the Jambedia than the rest of the villages. Jambedia which is about five kilometres south-west from the head regulator of the Kangsabati river barrage, have the closest farmlands from the dam water.  Villagers use suction pump to pull out water to irrigate their farm lands. Interestingly the strategic locational advantage of the village farmland is a result of the evacuation process. The village headman, the Majhi, who is old enough to see and remember the actual process of evacuation reports that people from Jambedia village have lost their land and bought new lands from neighbouring villages like Surigram and Jhanti-Pahari which are now disappeared under water. The irrigation results in production of multiple crops which is otherwise impossible in the region. The Self Help Group (SHG) initiatives taken by the Panchayat have resulted in the availability of loans and the village SHG members have purchased several such pumps to irrigate their farm land in arid seasons. However, similar SHGs of the adjacent villages did not buy simply because they barely have access to the water that they see every day from their village.

The nature of difference:

One crop makes a family to survive two crops ensure educational attainments and three crops makes significant impact on health and well being. I did Participatory Rural Appraisal as well as Focus Group Discussions to find out the nature of educational and occupational attainments of the villagers. It is seen that Jambedia has several college going students and has sons and daughters working as school teachers, government employees and as other white-collar workers. This has been possible because on average they could afford to send their children not only to the schools but also to the colleges and even to universities. Other villages have school going children, perhaps a good result of the Mid-day meal programme but none of the villagers could afford to continue their child’s post-school education. Young boys are sent to cities like Kolkata, Hyderabad, Bangalore and Pune to do construction works. While they stay abroad for a long period of time, it is reported by several villagers that they have high rate of Sexually Transmitted Disease, perhaps a common trend among the migrant labourers.

The possibilities:

While water scarcity is the main factor behind the difference between Jambedia and the rest, the Gorabari Gram Panchayat is constantly trying to improve water retention by constructing hapa, small water reservoir with the help of Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Generation Scheme. My two years field visit in the region shows that while the Gram Panchayat has planned innovatively to create hapas and interconnecting them to ensure long-term water retention, it is extremely difficult to convince villagers to provide land where such interconnected hapas can be constructed. There is no initiative from the irrigation department to install possible schemes like River Lift Irrigation, may be because it would reduce actual irrigation potential. However, in consequence villagers apart from Jambedia continue to toil for water which is plenty but inaccessible.  

Ethnocentric bias, starvation deaths and vanishing natives

People can die because of malnutrition, tuberculosis, fever and pneumonia, but they can never die of starvation. A recent report of starvation deaths in Birbhum triggers controversy that government and other key players have found hard to dodge. At least 19 tribal people have died because of starvation. There are several sporadic incidents of such deaths that go unnoticed. The question that becomes important is a historical one. The large scale starvation deaths occurred during 1942-43 do not report much death of tribal population of the state. The starvation death among tribal population while seen historically is a much recent phenomenon. What changes have taken place in last 70 years? More crucially it is important to explore what changes have taken place in last 20 years that have radically altered the tribal ways of life?

Post neo-liberal India sees lands being classified as barren, one to multi crop land, land having mining potentials and so on. Similarly forest policies kept displacing tribal access to the forest. Forest trees are replaced by eucalyptus and others adding noting to daily life of the people who depend heavily on the forest. Furthermore large scale displacements, often induced by development  have continued.

While a land which is seen as barren is actually used for cattle grazing, cultivating wild and high calorie cereals for local consumption, collection of tribal medicines. These lands are then taken for either developing connectivity or stone mining or much recently for industrialisation. The land grab under which tribal people are going through for last three decades are unprecedented.  

Case - I: dam construction and a close call 

The place is known as Mukutmanipur where thousands of families were displaced because of the construction of a river dam which is supposed to irrigate parts of Bardhaman, Bankura and Paschim Medinipur. My two seasons of fieldwork reveals that the impact of the dam construction is still quite detrimental. Apart from the loss of their homes and families who are now resettled far off, the neighboring villages have lost their grazing land and valuable forest resources on which they used to depend. Now the alternative economic pursuit is to work as a hotel boy in several hotels developed surrounding the mukutmanipur lake. Furthermore, the nature of the jungle is transformed and people can no longer depend on the forest resources which used to provide vital nutrients. The result is large-scale migration of men folk to neighbouring urban centres. If the neighbouring urban centres would have been far off many of the existing family members would have died.

Derivations:

Displacement leaves long term effects and undermines local and micro value orientations.

Policies of development usually underestimates existing man and other resource relationships

Case - II: piggery project and child malnutrition

 What happens when government decides to do something for the people. It usually happens like this.

step - I something clicks in the mind of a minister or IAS or the like in one fine morning

Step - II S/he prepares the plan over cups of high-tea sessions

Step - III An expert committee is formed and the project is implemented with the help of local agencies including NGOs.

No one even asks or seeks to explore the feasibility of the project. Once in  one of my fieldworks in Manipur it is seen that after the implementation of piggery development project child malnutrition become extremely high. The assessment team populated by anthropologists finds that because of high cash value of the piggery project people have stopped cultivating wild maize and other cereals. In consequence because of the lack of fodder which used to come from the stems of those wild cereals people have sold off their goats and cows. As a result children started to suffer from mal-nutrition triggered by low milk intake. 

Derivations:

Long-term effects are often undermined

Possible consequences of any initiatives are not properly addressed.  

Case - III: barren land and a halted industrialisation  

As already discussed barren land with good connectivity is an indistralist's gold mine. Therefore, Jindal Steel Works with the help of GoWB started their JSW project in Salboni on a barren land. It completely undermined the nature of existing attachments of the neighbouring tribal people with the land. With the construction of Jindal walls they do not have a place to collect fuel wood, roots and tubers that used to be an integral part of their daily food intake. There is no land for grazing of animals. They have even  lost the place to do open defecation. 

Derivations: 

Understanding of the natural resources are never done from the persepctives of the people who depend on these resources.

Value judgement of any resource depends on perspectives and policies lack the perspectives of the people who tend to depend on those resources

Case - IV: Maoists and armed forces

In another long term fieldwork which continued for three consecutive seasons in several regions of Paschim Medinipur I have seen that people are systematically being denied from the resources on which they have historically depended. While in pre 2011 election Maoist violence have occupied the news headlines people's everyday lives have largely been unseen. The most severely affected people were the tribal. They could not go into the forest because of the fear of maoists who would see them as police linkmen and they could not come out of the jungle because of the fear that police would see them as a maoist sympathasier. The consequence have been devastating. Because of frequent bullet exchanges cultivation was virtually stopped people have starved, if not have died.  

Derivations:

Policies and sometimes armed ideological conflicts tends to undermine people for whom the fight take place.

The accumulations:  

One of the anthropological cornerstones have been the idea of cultural relativism. Although hotly debated, whether or not we should observe cultural relativist stance there is a need to make policies free of ethnocentric bias to the extent possible. Often we find people saying tribal and natives eat rats, snakes, insects and ant larvae because of the paucity of food. There should be policies to feed them for which we need their resources. This is an utter lie. Tribal people eat those items because they consider those as their foods and not alternatives to chicken/mutton or rice and wheat. We have continually damaged their resources. We have transformed their grazing lands to mining grounds, stone crushing factories and water reserviors. We have transformed their forests into bunch of eucalyptus trees which do not yield anything but fuel woods. We never try to explore the systematic relationship between tribal and their habitat. Sadly, anthropologists and other social scientists including activists who do understand the process are either sidelined by the policy makers or are too romantically involved in so called "going native". Instead we see site for industrialisation in their barren lands, we tend to calculate profit and loss from the land yield according to our mode of calculations. 

Now the question is how long are we going to prepare policies that has nothing to do with the natives? The answer however, is known, it is INDEFINITELY. 

For the poor and the environment: a victory

Civil matters.

Orissa's unrestricted mining by vedanta groups has been halted by Ministry of Environment and Forest. A reason to celebrate. The order has been issued yesterday. Have a look by clicking here

Cheers

Neoliberal loot in mining: the self and governance

We do have an utility maximising self. Governing mechanism or state in other words is the only outlet (apart from self morality) to protect resources from this inherent greed. The morality mechanism is already paralyzed, since we have stepped into Durkheimian Organic Solidarity, that has installed impersonal, contractual relationships.

The case:

We live in a world filled with resources, and our country is exceptionally rich in some regions. An estimate by Ramakrishnan (2010) suggests that 1.64 lakh hectares of forest land has been diverted for mining in India. Only Iron-ore mining used up 77 million tonnes of water in 2005-06. States like Andhra Pradesh, Orissa, Nocobar Islands, etc. are the major share holders of this diversion.

The liberalised loot:

India is investing $300 billion in 2009 (statistics by Indian Institute of Metals), six times of the total investment made since independence. Orissa sites one of the worst examples. Here, an in other states illegal mining occurs at places inhabited by tribal people. They are working as labourers and no benefit is redistributed to the locality. With the change in mining policy which encourages private sector intervention in the sector initiates displacements, and environmental degradation manifold. As a result a few people and corporations get benefitted at the cost of enormous environmental, social and human cost. Ramakrishnan (2010) focuses on expert's argument that regulatory mechanisms are paralysed or near absent.

Disasters and displacements:

A study by Amnesty International on Vedanta's operations in Orissa focuses on violation of environmental laws that prevents contamination of air, water and human condition. The history of mining reflects displacement of 2.5 crore people and not even 25% of them gets replacement.

State: politico-corporate nexus

Now coming back to the larger issue, its about the self's interest maxmisation and the control over that pursuit. It is only state and civil society that can and should work as a filter to control the unlimited maximising pursuit of a few individuals and corporations. However, these mechanisms are not working in the way it should work as the state is promoting corporations. The civil is voiceless. Even, states are using Maoist tag for legitimising their intervention in these tribal inhabited regions.

Taking the picture as a whole, it is found that miners operate with support from politicians. There are instances where they enter into active politics and run businesses while being part of the government (Das 2010, Menon 2010).

Interestingly, the rationality of state, as reflected historically: "doing for others", "controling subjects for better ends", "optimal use of resources", etc. are all engulfed or eclipsed in the deep blue sea of capitalism.

May be the civil, may be the subaltern keep looking for an alternative, however, we don't know who is wearing what mask? what lies behind the mask? and whether, the mask has anything real, i.e., really different from the mask?

Sacred mountain, corporates and mao: the case from Niyamgiri hills

Parallel to kaleidoscope's skepticism regarding corporate promotion as we see in the annual budget, Orissa is siting example of the darker side of neoliberal dreams and an "effective" strategy of corporate promotion.

The background:

This is the case of a state where two-thirds of rural families live below poverty line with other dismal social indicators. While straightway industrialisation is seen as a ray of hope for the people of Orissa, however, the reverse is the true, at least, in local people's versions. Recent cases with Posco, Tata Steel and Vedanta Aluminium Limited show strong opposition from people, as they are threatened to snatch off their fertile lands. Lands which fall within scheduled areas!

Government and people:

Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik's voice is for peaceful industrialisation process. However, the protests from people stays unheard and state armed forces are in operation which results in killing of 14 tribal people at Kalinganagar near proposed Tata steel plant on January 2, 2006. More than 700 armed policeman are deployed to facilitate industrialisation. The construction of road for Tata steel is harshly protested as a result hundreds of policemen fired rubber bullet injuring people and on May 12 a policeman open fire to kill a tribesman.

The government is alleged of taking unfair benefits from the corporations.

Sacred mountain and their inhabitants:

Vedanta finds Bauxite in and arround Niyamgiri mountains inhabited by Dongria Kondhs, a denotified Premitive Tribal Group (PTG) who believe Niyamgiri mountain to be their king and God. Once the company gets clearance to mine the hills, they will be thoroughly displaced. This will not only ruin the entire mountain, but also thousands of inhabitants will be homeless, thereby seriously affecting their culture, peaceful living and basic amenities.

Rules and the ministry:

Traditional Forest Dwellers Act, scheduled tribal area act (5th and 6th schedule), protects tribal rights on forest and land. Union minister Jairam Ramesh declared that ministry is not in a hurry to give clearance which shows a ray of hope for the people after sacrificing a lot.

Escape from the rules: Mao smell

Dongria Kondh movements backed by Communist Party of India (CPI) maintains absolute secrecy. They do it because of the fear of being tagged as having Communist Party of India Maoist connection. The chief leaders of the movement are ready to confront the being tagged as maoist and killed by Central Reserved Police Forces (CRPF).

The scenario:

If Mao connection is established and CRPFs are deployed to help corporations getting clearance - it is highly likely that this would be standard strategy with three steps:

1. identify an area suitable for corporates and initiate acquisition.

2. use state machinery to help the corporation.

3. when all else fails declare it as Maoist inhabited area and deploy CRPF troops to initiate "Clear, Hold and Build" strategy!!!!!

The VAL chief operations officer Mukesh Kumar argues that mining area does not have a settlement therefore, it does not involve displacement. It indicates serious lack of understanding of tribal life, as they depend of natural resources for three Fs - Food, fodder and fuel along with other requirements like medicine and also emotional attachments.

See yourself:

http://www.mynews.in/Blog/Vedanta_rebuts_Amnesty_report_on_mining_project_impact_B558.html

http://www.flonnet.com/stories/20100618271203700.htm

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-05-17/police-firing-at-posco-s-india-site-triggers-protests-rallies.html

http://www.mynews.in/News/The_ugly_side_of_land_acquisition_in_India_N59322.html

http://www.survivalinternational.org/films/mine

Blame it on others: from OGH to Ajmal Kasab

As kaleidoscope loves to see himself a conscious being, he often explores his own self in the world in which he belongs. The most recent discovery is his habit of blaming others.

Kaleidoscope breaks a glass and says "its broken" instead of "I broke it." He makes a mistake in interim report for his institute. He says "I am disturbed with this hot and humid environment. Its too difficult to concentrate." Kalidoscope's super mom says "if you want to blame, blame it on yourself." Kaleidoscope knows this is a dialogue by Saradamoyee Devi, wife of Shri Ramakrishna. Well he is confused while he relates his mother's action and her words, its like railway tracks... you know what it means.

Now Kaleidoscope places himself in the world, which he is given to live in. He finds the same blame game continues. Recently three major events touch him.

First, Operation Green Hunt (OGH, yes once-again!!). Kaleidoscope finds that basic participatory strategy in development is ignored in its Clear Hold and Build strategy. Which means state action forces will clear territory from Maoist occupation, will hold themselves for a while as a peace keeping strategy and then build, that is, state machinery will initiate development activities.

The adivasis of Bastar taking refuge owing to OGH, Courtesy The Hindu.

The question is development for whom? Most recent strategic meeting for OGH in Orissa has been done without inviting a single local people from a place where tribals are victimised by red rebels and state machinary.

kaleidoscope looks at his country's map and finds this

India's red corridor till 2007

This is a map of 2007, and now The frontline says they have spread in states like Gujrat, Rajastan, Hariyana, UP and Uttaranchal. Recent Dantewara incident on April 6, shows their skills and lack of information to OGH actors. While strategy remains the same, OGH implementers, common people, targeted groups (like CPIM leaders and workers in West Bengal) are dying everyday. Common people are living in prolonged strike condition, with constant threat.

The basic fact is clear in Dantewada's District Magistrate's voice, that lack of sensitivity from mainstreatm politics to address livelihood issues actively creates a vacuum where red rebels work. Planning commission recommends for opting Integrated Tribal Development Programme through Tribal Sub Plans, with encouragement of people's participation. They argue for this strategy can tackle the problems of injustice and can prevent people from taking guns. (see Frontline, May 7,2010)

Instead of looking at the basic problems and causes of Maoist spread, Kaleidoscope frustratingly finds that it is just a blame game. BLAME IT ON MAOISTS.

Second, IPL massacre. Suddenly all blame goes to Lalit Modi. BLAME IT ON MODI

Third and more sentimental is the death sentence of Ajmal Kasab. Kaleidoscope finds that the entire nation rejoices while a human bomb is in the process of being punished. While the country fails to address the issue of internal security, people are happy to see the alive terrorist being killed. So, BLAME IT ON PAKISTAN.

Kaleidoscope is happy to find like minded people and like minded national strategy.