Abstract

Can there be equitable and sustainable development that is also inclusive of tribal groups? The continuing marginalization of the adivasis poses a fundamental dilemma to the current development model. The dominant tendency in the state and in mainstream society when it comes to the question of tribal development has been to consign the group to a state of dependency; consequently, the state’s approach is often paternalistic and undemocratic. Moreover, this perception of adivasis as backward and lacking in agency has resulted in a state policy of restricting decentralization and local-level planning and governance in tribal-dominated areas. When it comes to development policy and debate, the condition of tribal groups as the most marginalized of people often leads to an uncritical application of the dominant development model; the attitude of the policymakers and agencies unfortunately is to dish out a standard prescription like education, health and employment without adapting any of these in view of the special needs and cultural practices of specific adivasi groups. This article is a critical reflection on development politics vis. adivasis with specific reference to the state of Chattisgarh.

The paper was presented in an International Seminar “Indian State and Indigenous/Tribal Peoples: Revisiting Philosophical Foundations of Constitutional Guarantees”, organized by Bodoland University & Centre for Social Justice and Governance, Tata Institute of Social Sciences at Kokrajhar on 28-29th March 2014. The seminar was supported by the Tribal Intellectual Collective India.

Introduction

The signifier ‘tribal’, it is worthwhile to recall, is merely a product of the community’s engagement with the state and external society (Kjosavik, 2006). Keeping in view the different historical and cultural experiences of a particular tribal community, their specific needs and aspirations as regards development may not fully find expression through a movement which must represent the collective interests of all tribes. In 1976 and thereafter in 1993, a distinction was made within the tribal community; the category of Primitive Tribal Group (PTGs) was created to include those groups that were considered poorest of the poor (UNDP 2012). According to the Indian government, Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups (PVTG), earlier known as PTG, are characterized by a) forest-based livelihoods, b) pre-agriculture level of existence, c) stagnant or declining population d) extremely low literacy and e) a subsistence economy (NAC, 2013). The 28 th Standing Committee on Labour Welfare, which focused on the development of the PVTGs concluded that there hasn’t been much progress made on this front. In spite of special provision for PVTGs since the 5 th Five Year Plan, no state government has proposed the deletion of any group from the list (UNDP, 2012).

PVTGs are crucial to the entire development debate for two reasons. Firstly, because theirs’ remains, the last resistance to the cultural, social, political and economic homogenization of social institutions from the family to the economy, which is one of the major features of development. Secondly, irrespective of whether they lose in the struggle for survival or ‘succeed’ in being assimilated by development, it will mean the erasure of many cultures and a setback to cultural diversity in India, and with that will also disappear any hope of we learning valuable lessons from these cultures in order to cure the sickness of our own civilization.

In 2001, as per the census, the population of Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups (PVTGs) in India was 27,68,322. As the census does not focus on these groups beyond numbers, the National Advisory Council (NAC, 2013), in its recommendations for 2013 on development challenges to the PVTGs, has pointed out the lack of authentic data on the population and current habitat of these groups. The NAC defines the PVTGs as tribal communities, which stand out from other tribes who have either completely assimilated into the mainstream or are close. The PVTGs are tribes who have forest based livelihoods; pre-agriculture level of existence; a stagnant or declining population; and extremely low literacy and subsistence economy. There are 75 such groups, which live across 17 states and 1 Union Territory in India. The primary reason for the increase in the vulnerabilities of the PVTGs across the country is the loss of their customary habitat and livelihood resources, which sustained them in the past. This loss is attributed to non-recognition of their rights despite many legislative provisions such as The Scheduled Tribes and Other Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Right Act, 2006, also called FRA and the Provisions of the Panchayats: Extension to the Scheduled Areas Act, 1996 (PESA). The NAC’s primary recommendation is that rights to their land and habitation must be recognized and respected in order to protect these groups from their present fragile conditions, socio-economic vulnerability and diminishing population.

Table 1: Population of PVTGs in Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh
(source: Census 2001)

The census data does not show any apparent fall in the numbers of the PVTGs in the central Indian region of Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, however it is clear that no census has covered all these communities fully thus leaving this question of diminishing numbers unexplored. While the government brackets all the Baiga, Birhor, Kamar and Hill Korwa into the single category of PVTG, their living conditions, basic needs to lead a dignified life, and their vulnerabilities are very different. This situation calls for an approach where each of these categories is viewed for individual communities, which require dedicated and undivided attention to uphold their right to live and dignity.

Methodology

This study employs a qualitative methodology. Observations from the field, secondary data sources (including available literature), key informant interviews, and quantitative data on human development indicators available in government reports were used in this study. This paper will present case studies of the Baiga in the Daldali area of Bodla block in Kawardha district; Hill (Pahadi) Korwa in Surguja and Korba district; Kamar in Churra block of Raipur district and Birhor in Korba district. This paper is based on a review of secondary literature, field observations and field notes made while studying the socio-economic conditions of different tribes, castes and vulnerable communities for the purpose of drafting a report on the state implementation plan for the National Rural Livelihood Mission in Chhattisgarh in 2013.

Baiga

The Baiga is a PVTG whose home is on the eastern Satupra hills in the Mandla, Balaghat and Bilaspur Districts. Baigas formerly practised only shifting cultivation, burning down patches of jungle and sowing seed on the ground fertilised by the ashes after the breaking of the rains (Russell, 1916). The distinct feature about Biagas is that they don’t till the ground and consider it to be a sin to lacerate the breast of their mother earth with a ploughshare (ibid). Another possible reason which they say is that God has made jungle which gives them everything and also gave them wisdom to discover the things provided to them. While Gonds don’t have the wisdom and are left with tiling the land (ibid). A Baigan (word used to refer to females in the Baiga community) is generally tattooed on the forehead at the age of five and subsequently her entire body is tattooed before the marriage.

The Baiga community in Bhoramgaon village in Daldali area of Bodla block, being studied as part of this paper is living in condition of extreme poverty. Nearly fifty families who still live here have their frugal settlements around the Bauxite mining site of Vedanta. The mining here has been shut down since 2012 after a court order. It takes about three and half hours from the district headquarter to reach here. Vedanta’s mining project has already displaced many families from their natural habitat and the ones who stayed back were not aware where they had migrated. The administration, including grassroots functionaries at panchayat level also did not have any ready numbers of the displaced families. Many of the displaced families had moved out from the rehabilitation plots given to them at the base of the hill, on which Bhoramgaon is situated. These plots were on a roadside, away from their natural habitat of forest area, which perhaps forced them to migrate elsewhere in absence of scope for carrying on with their natural course of livelihood activity. Their livelihood activities still remain primarily dependent of natural forest recourses. Baiga’s generally make bamboo mats and baskets, collect and sell honey and other forest products (ibid). The Baiga families are also facing difficulty in trying to file for FRA claims ( National Level Public Heraing on Community Forest Rights, 2013). The Baiga families who have decided to stay back around the mining area, live on the fringes of the area acquired for mining. Till year 2012 they continued to work as daily wage labourers earning Rs. 80 to Rs. 100 per day as daily wages, which is way below the Rs. 173 per day wage rate notified by the Chattisgarh government (April 2012 to September 2013). The development project brought road to the village and so called opportunity for earning wages in cash to their doorstep. But this form of development came as a sudden shock. It destroyed their natural habitat on which their livelihoods have been traditionally dependent and still did not ensure basic entitlements for them. The NAC in its recommendations 2013 note that there is a need to recognize that PVTGs, unlike, the rest of the population, are particularly vulnerable to sudden intrusions or changes in their life. The impact leads to shocks, most often experienced at the collective level, and of such intensity, that they are also known to succumb due to inability to withstand the mental and resultant physical trauma. Having not experienced such drastic and rapid changes in their past, they have not developed coping mechanisms as other communities have, and hence tend to perish collectively. The Baiga women still trudge for four hours every day up and down the hill to a pond from where they get their drinking water. Children assist them in this activity. This pond is fed from a natural water stream, in which the water discharge has gone down over the years. There is a limit to how much water it can provide them on any day. Thus they divide the time for fetching water into two shifts of morning and evening as the pond takes time to fill up.

A government primary school in their village functions as per the convenience of the sole school teacher posted here. The villagers rued that the teacher comes from far away and when the functioning of the school depends on his will. Frail bodies and swollen bellies of majority of children and infants witnessed during the meeting with villagers were an apparent sign of prevailing malnutrition in the area, where access to regular Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS) facility was also not available. The Public Distribution System (PDS) facility for the village was situated far away, at the base of the Bhoramgaon hill from where the people trudge on foot first to find out whether the ration has arrived and then to access it. It takes about half a day to cover the distance back and forth between the village and PDS depot, for this community.

Most of the supplies for vegetables such as Karu and Kandha (green leaves and tubers from roots of plants in the forest) are brought from the forest. Some families here have also started to do farming in the recent years but they have not succeeded in harvesting amount of food grains that can sustain a family for three months. The activists working in these areas explain that the reasons for low productivity of agriculture are attributed to the novice status of Baigas in stationary agriculture practice against their earlier practice of shifting cultivation. Now very few families have the privilege to practice shifting cultivation as they do not have such huge areas of land to practice shifting cultivation, due to conflict with the forest department and non recognition of their rights these land in the forest area. The Baigas of Bodla lived in hilly regions in the past but now government has shifted their habitations to lesser forested areas on lower altitudes and closer to plains. They have yet not fully been able to adjust to this shock so far, even as this shift took place over four decades ago. A similar shock was faced by the Baiga community in Madhya Pradesh when the government asked them to shift out of the areas around Kanha Kisli National Park as the government declared the natural habitat of this community as a buffer zone. The Baiga community displaced from Achanakmar Wildlife Sanctuary (which is also part of the larger Amarkantak-Achanakmar Biosphere spread across MP and Chattisgarh) are still struggling with the shock of sudden displacement (NAC, 2013)

In Pandaria block, of Kawardha district which is closer to district headquarter, some Baigas have settled in a pocket of the Mathpur village after migrating from their habitat in the hills. While reasons for migration are unknown as it is the second generation of Baigas living in this village, but despite being here for a considerable time they have not been able to become part of the village. They live on fringes of village and closer to the forests. The Baiga faced difficulty in accessing ICDS services in monsoon as they were cut off due to heavy water flow in a seasonal gorge running through one part of the village. Baiga families had small landholdings and only 25 percent of the nearly 20 Baiga families staying here had land in the village while the others earned through daily wage labour on lands of the others such as Gonds, a politically powerful tribe here or the Yadavs who were also closer to the power structure of the region.

During group discussions and village meetings while the Satnami (Schedule Caste), Gond, and Yadav were vocal, the Baigas preferred to stay quiet and perhaps had a negligible say in the village. On the other side in a separate meeting with a group of Baiga women it became apparent that they had no say in the village when it came to deciding about issues of development. The women did not participate in the process of the village panchayat or Gram Sabha and even if they went they did not speak. The discussions with women highlighted the fact that in Mathpur, the Baigas felt marginalized at the hands of people from Gond tribal community. The Gonds have always in been power in the village and the Baigas feel that they have always ignored their demands for handpumps near their cluster of houses and also houses under Indira Awas Yojna. The perception of the Satnamis, dalit community was that they were being marginalized by the tribes, Baiga and the Gond as they did not get land under FRA.

While agricultural land of the powerful communities was closer to the natural water ponds, the landholdings of Baigas were closer to the forest and were not connected to the water source.

Some activists and a Prime Minister Rural Development Fellow (PMRDF) are now focusing on the issue of traditional forest rights and FRA claims for the Baigas in this area. The activist have observed that when the Baigas were practicing shifting cultivation they had no recognized rights on that land in government records and when the government removed them from the forests to non-forested and non-hilly areas their rights to land in new habitations were captured by other communities like Gonds (tribes) and Yadavs, who were more developed and politically stronger than the Baigas.

After recent intervention from the PMRDF fellow FRA claims in Mathpur village were filed and out of nearly 170 claims only 30 have been given. Though the final list was yet to be released it was known that Baigas were in majority to get the claims. (Banerjee, Kumar, Verma and Solanki, 2013)

Apart from the land rights the activists are also fighting for the basic entitlements of the Baigas, such as food and water. It has been seen that the Baigas still living away from the larger population on hills do not have access to drinking water. There is no piped water and neither are there any handpumps in areas around their habitat. They fill water from natural streams or ponds and during monsoon also they continue to fetch drinking water from streams. This leads to health problems and outbreaks. In summers these people make their houses near the streams and leave their cattle open for grazing as availability of fodder is also a problem. In one family usually one person everyday is entrusted with the job of getting water and it is difficult for one person to carry water for the whole family from the streams. The grassroots efforts are now focusing on empowering the Baigas to raise these issues with the government through the panchayats. The areas also lack other basic facilities like education and health as well.

The primitive stage of Baigas is also reflected in their practices of daily chores. Some tribal activists of Ekta Manch are now educating them about hygienic storage of the cooked food. The practices of covering food to protect it from contamination during monsoons and summers are some of the key components of their programme. Earlier experiences of the activists highlighted the fact that the practice of leaving the food uncovered in coking vessels or plates after cooking were found as reasons for contamination of food and related cases of food poisoning. Repeated encounters with these problems were also one of the causes of increased chances of chronic malnutrition among mothers and infants.

Kamar

Deori village under Churra block of Raipur district was traditionally a village inhabited by Kamar PVTG. During the last century other communities of Gond, Yadav, Raut, Dewan, Teli, Kanwar and Dhruv migrated and settled here. Half a dozen Kamar families living here are economically weaker than rest of the community. A couple of Kamar families were landless despite being landowners on record. They had mortgaged their lands to economically stronger people of the village in lieu of loans that were taken to take care of family responsibilities such as marriage and medical treatment.

The case of one of the Kamar families in Deori brings out multiplicities of vulnerability and levels of marginalization that this PVTG is undergoing. This Kamar family (referred to as Family-1, now on) lives in center of the village in an old kuchha house. The Family-1 comprises of five members. The incidents of past three years have brought the family to a state of utter despair. It started with the first loan of Rs. 5000 taken in year 2010 against a mortgage of 4.5 acres of land for marriage of a son. No interest was charged on the loan for first five years. The moneylender who is from the same village imposed a condition that if the family is not able to repay on time they will not get the land back and a interest will also be charged on the principal amount. Now the married son is suffering from two consecutive attacks of Tuberculosis. His health does not permit him to work and his wife has also deserted him. Another son of this family also cannot work due to low eye sight, a problem which was since birth but aggravated as he grew older. He is in mid-twenties. Wife of head of the Family-1, is suffering from a stomach and lung ailment. Due to illiteracy the family does not have knowledge about the exact medical condition of the woman but they have been asked to arrange Rs. 30000 for her surgery by some hospital in Raipur. The family is not even thinking about going in for this surgery as arranging for such a big amount is beyond their ability and imagination. Thus, with three members of a family being ill only one teenage daughter and her father who is the head of the family are the working hands. The head of the family works as agricultural labour and earns Rs. 50 per day as wage, whenever he finds work and same is the situation of his daughter. He feels that the times have not changed for better for Kamar community and their condition has deteriorated further in the past few years. He remembers the golden days when he used to roam in the forest and hunt squirrels and rabbits and also had enough livestock and land to survive his family. His skill and knowledge of moving fearlessly in forests was also recognized by the forest department that had engaged him on temporary basis to guard the forest area.

Earlier, the Kamar community here used to rear cattle in the forest and did not practice agriculture. Some families made baskets from bamboo and sold them locally. The change in their livelihoods and eco-system during the past century has shaken them. Kamars had livestock as asset and if they wanted some big amount for occasions like marriage they used to sell some cattle and did not have to take loan. But over the years their lifestyle has changed and they also do not have livestock to depend upon and the only asset they have is land which is slowly going out of their hands due to debt.

Illness or social obligations in the family lead to sale of the family’s assets and since it is a distress sale they do not get a fair deal. They government health infrastructure around their village does not take care of treatment of specialized illness and the cost of medical treatment in private clinics is not affordable so they go into further debt. Due to lesser working hands in the family the livelihood and sustenance of the family takes a complete setback.

The Family-1, of Kamar sold Rs. 1000 worth Mahua this year but did not sell Tendu Patta as the trees that belonged to them were on their land, which is now pawned and not under their possession. Thus they have no right over the trees which are a source of earning from natural forest wealth at least once a year. The Tendu or Mahua trees on private land can be accessed for NTFP extraction only by the family that owns that land. There is a fierce competition for extraction from the Mahua and Tendu trees in the common forest land and certainly a family that has more working hands gets more benefit. So here as well this Kamar family takes a beating. Moreover, due to fierce completion for NTFP extraction the number of Tendu trees on common forest land that are accessible to all have been cut down over the years and the natural forest wealth of the village is fast dwindling. This has the heaviest adverse impact marginalized communities such as Kamars.

Case of another old Kamar lady (referred to as Family-2, now on), in her eighties, who stays with her son’s family also brings out similar intense marginalization pattern. She was not able to cultivate land as the family had no money to buy seeds or other farm inputs. The Family-2 did not even have cattle for ploughing the fields and also did not have money to pay someone for hiring cattle to plough their fields. About two years ago, the Family-2 had taken interest free loan from a Gond family in the village but as they were not able to repay the principal amount within the stipulated time, they had to give their one acre of land on share cropping basis to the Gond family. From here they were able to earn Rs. 2000 to Rs. 3000 depending on the crop production for a particular year. Due to scarcity of water in this area crop is sown only in one season.

In the case of both the Kamar families it also observed that they were so much trapped in struggles of daily life which impacted their participation in community life as well. None of the family members from the Family-2 participated in the community meetings. Even as the head of the Kamar Family-1 participated his views were lost in the din of the voices of the other dominant communities, who dismissed him as “lazy and unworthy of hard work and thus a poor man due to his own deeds”. Low confidence level in the community and deprivation from common resources of the village leads to decreased access to entitlements, thus reducing the consciousness of PVTG communities towards collective identity. This also reduces the political bargaining power the primitive tribal groups.

Over the years the other tribal as well as non-tribal communities that migrated to Deori village became stronger in the local governance and dominate the village panchayat. While they have been able to use their influence to get land claims under FRA the Kamars have not got even a single claim here. (Banerjee, Kumar, Verma and Solanki, 2013)

The government’s livelihood programmes started for PVTGs had a top down approach and Nawa Anjor was one such a livelihood initiative started for vulnerable tribal communities across Chattisgarh. The Kamar community was also one of the beneficiaries under this. Under the project collectives of the Kamar were to be formed for making bamboo products. Only a couple of Kamar families from Deori village were linked with this project. However, no one earned any sustainable income from it. A young woman from one of the Kamar families in Deori which was a listed beneficiary of the scheme, said that after she made the baskets with the raw material provided to her under the scheme from outside the village she deposited the finished product with the panchayat. She did not receive any benefit from the scheme, as the products were not marketed. As per her analysis the initiative failed as there was no locally available raw material (Bamboo) in abundance for such an activity and they were dependent for raw material from outside the village. This could not have sustained for long. The most marginalized of the families of Kamars were not even included in this initiative and neither are these families aware of such a government programme.

There are no activists or community based organizations working with the Kamars in this area. Most of the Kamar families in the village live in very small kuccha houses and with little access to basic entitlements. On the other side the families from other communities have prospered and have made concrete housing structures, have purchased motorbikes and hire mechanized help for harvesting their rice crop.

Whatever little Mahua is collected by the Kamar families is sold to the local shopkeeper in the village who is also the Sarpanch. They buy daily ration supplies in return for the Mahua. The Mahua is seen as an additional income by most of the people in this village and they save it or utilize it for asset building or one time investment for some work, but for marginalized people from Kamar community Mahua picking season also does not provide more than what is required for tiding over a season of food crisis. The only saving grace for the Kamar families here was that they had ration cards. But one of the Kamar families did not have a BPL ration card, despite poor economic condition of the family. The village panchayat blames this oversight on the faults in the state’s BPL household survey in year 2002.

Hill Korwa

The Hill Korwa are mainly concentration in Jashpur, Sarguja and Raigarh district of Chhattisgarh. The area is cut across by the range of Vindhyadri mountain running East ‐ West creating upper ghat and lower ghats. Upper ghat is an extensive plateau, which is under the Khudia region. The soil of the Korwa habitat is not up to the mark and they only grow minor and inferior crops (Planning Commission, 2010). They are branch of Kolarian tribe and speak Mundari language.

In Sarganwan village of Balrampur block, under Balrampur district (which was carved out of Surguja district in year 2012) the Hill Korwas are staying in one of the hamlets on outskirts of the village. The village is in a sanctuary area and has dense forest. Connectivity of the village to the main road that leads to the block headquarter is through a semi-pucca road (worn out due to vagaries of weather) but the heavy rains of the monsoons cut off this village from the rest sometimes for even more than one week. Hamlets of different communities like Oraon, Pandoh, Nagesiya, Hill Korwa and Agariya in this widely spread out village are not very well connected with each other. One hamlet comprises of the families of one caste or tribe.

The Hill Korwas are staying on one corner of the village and far off from the village centre, where the Anganwadi centre (under ICDS) is situated. They do not have access to piped drinking water or handpump in their village. To fetch drinking water they often cross over to a nearby hamlet of another village situated across a seasonal stream, which separates Sarganwan and the neighboring village. Sometimes when this stream swells after a heavy downpour in monsoons they suffice with rain water or risk to cross the stream as soon as the water level receeds and get water in gallons, that are ferried by handing them on both ends of a stick and balancing them on both ends of a stick. During heavy rains this hamlet gets disconnected from rest of the village as other seasonal water streams that crisscross the landscape of the village get swelled in monsoons cutting off their access to the PDS, ICDS and health facilities. For accessing health facilities the people have to go outside the village and when the road connectivity gets cut off the people depend on nothing but home remedies and hope for the waters to recede. The village Mitanin also feels helpless in such situations as the supplies of the medicines for malaria and fever also deplete and are not supplied to the village on time.

In monsoons the people depend on a private medical practitioner for regular as well as serious ailments. Many deaths have been reported here as the people could not cross the swelled seasonal water stream to reach hospital and the patients died due high fever and malaria. The private doctor camps in the village during monsoons for some days during the break out of malaria and gastroenteritis to and also assists in child births. Local people take loans from each other to pay the doctor for medicines and in time of medical emergency often the community members help each other for monetary as well as moral support. However, no government doctor visits the village. The patients always have to see the government doctor at the PHC or the sub centre which is far from the village.

The Hill Korwa here practice agriculture on small land holdings and sow only Kharif crop. This community had not got land rights under FRA, even as they are largely dependent upon the forest for NTFP for cash income and seasonal vegetables that are a part of their staple diet. Their agricultural land is also in and around the forests.

Hill Korwa in Narmada village in Ajgarwaha Gram Panchayat (Daldali area) in Korba district were found to be in a primitive agriculture stage where they migrate seasonally between hills and plains and stay in deep forests. They practice shifting cultivation. In one season they go into deeper forests on the hill and in one season they come to a habitation closer to the road in plains (non-hilly area). But sometimes they migrate for one full year as well to the deep forests on the hills. These habitations have never been accessed by any government functionary at the panchayat level and they have no idea about the type of houses they have on the hills or the access to other amenities. The government’s approach has always been to stop their migration between the hills and the plains and station them in areas that are more accessible for the government functionaries to oversee implementation of schemes. Thus, under Indira Awas Yojna houses the Hill Korwa were constructed at a habitation site in the plain areas. But the Korwa do not prefer to stay there for a long and migrate back into the forests on hills. Many houses made under government schemes lie vacant year after year and are also rendered dilapidated. They cultivate on forest land and have not got any land under FRA so far. Their sites of cultivation in the plains as well on the hills are in deep forest and closer to water streams. As part of shifting cultivation they leave some fields uncultivated for a year and revisit it in next year. The Hill Korwa permanently stay in Narmada and every year cultivate the same land expressed that over the years the productivity of land has gone down. When they used to stay in the higher hills they used to sow Kodo-Kutkibut after they migrated to plains as the government settled them at one location they stopped growing it. The reason for not cultivating Kodo-Kutki is that they assumed that it will not grow in plains, as the land here was not fertile. Kodo-Kutki is a food with very high nutrition content and the production and cultivation has fallen drastically in the last sixty years. Korwas are known for their traditional cultivation called Korwa Kheti (Korwa farming) which is a mix cultivating methods of all crops like grains and vegetables. But with excessive use of pesticides and fertilisers the good grass is also being destroyed which has impact on local vegetation and ecological structure. In order to revive Korwa farming Chaupal has started an experiment with cultivation of Ragi (millet). (Gangaram- Chaupal)

Another case is that of the Hill Korwa community living in a far off hamlet of Bela panchayat, This panchayat is spread across a radius of eight kilometers and is situated in the backyard of Korba town and the BALCO steel plant. The community still engages in hunting. Their cultural practices portray their traditional closeness to the forests and its protection. They have sacred groves and protect them against destruction and by attaching a spiritual value to their existence in the village. The habitation of Hill Korwa in this panchayat are also far from the village center where government institutional services can be accessed and often they have to travel long distance to access PDS, school, health or ICDS services. The road constructed to this Korwa hamlet in middle of the forest was done as part of a proposed bauxite mining site in the area. However, later this project was scuttled. While the road connects them to the Korba town and their panchayat headquarter, there is no public transportation. Men from here go once a month to the Korba town to access supplies on their bicycles. The distance is at least 10 kilometers. Since the road is through a forest stretch the women do not venture out of the limits of their village and engage in household chores. They have also started to practice agriculture, but are still dependent on forest for vegetables, NTFP and medicines used in traditional forms of healing. Many women in this village had never seen Korba town in their lifetime. There is a woman representative from this village in the panchayat, but the village still believes in the traditional form of leadership and trust the old system of collective decision making in this hamlet. The nearest school from here can be accessed on foot by the children after walking about three kilometers, via shorter routes through the forest.

Birhor in Korba

The Birhors belong to the Mundari group of tribes and are mainly concentrated in the central districts of Chhattisgarh. In these regions they are locally known as Mankidi, Mankria or Mankar ‐ khia Kol because of their habit of eating the flesh of monkeys (Planning Commission, 2009). They are broadly branded as hunter ‐ gatherers, the whole gamut of the Birhor economy in the above ‐ mentioned areas of Chhattisgarh involves the collection of forest resources mainly bark of Bhop creepers which are use to make various kinds of rope.

Chuhiya village under Bela Panchayat is also in the backyard of BALCO steel plant. This village has also been adopted by BALCO under its CSR initiative. A hamlet of Birhors PVTG is situated in this village and has about 20 families. The tribe is also known as the monkey-eating tribe. But as the community leaders expressed they have stopped eating monkeys now. Interestingly, the village panchayat has constructed a small temple of ‘Hanuman’ (India mythological figure who had a monkey face). The community leaders pointed towards the temple and suggested that this is symbolic of the change that the tribe has gone through in the recent years. The Birhor who are settled here were earlier living in their natural habitations which are in the interior of the dense forest around Korba town. They used to move freely in the forest and never came out as their sustenance was dependent on forests. Their only point of contact with the outside world was with their skill of making ropes from barks and roots of a particular tree. After they were asked to migrate out of the forest they lost access to this resource and thus a livelihood activity which provided them access to things from the nearby villages through barter system.

Majority of the members of Birhor community here are landless. And a few who own land cultivate very small tracts of land. They still practice their traditional form of livelihood of making ropes from the bark of chob creeper but there are no creepers in the forest around their present habitation that can give them the raw material- bark for making ropes. Now they have switched to making ropes from plastic threads. The nature of the creepes from which they extracted the bark for making ropes was such nature that the bark grew back the next season for more extraction and the creeper was not harmed. They purchase the raw material for the ropes from the market and then sell them by roaming village to village or by going to village haat. Even as the village had been adopted under CSR the incidents of the recent past and their socio-economic condition revealed a story of complete neglect both at the hands of their so called benefactor and also the government that is the overall guardian of all citizens.

The Birhor community settled in Chuhiya had long been resettled outside the forests one generation years ago. In Chuyiya they had been settled on a patch of land outside the forest area. At this site the government had made houses for them under Indira Awas Yojna. In complete disrespect for their nature of lifestyle, traditions and culture they were forced to settle down at an alien location, which did not support their livelihood activity and also distanced them from the forests that gave them sustenance. After doing this the State almost forgot them and left them on their own. The government functionaries at the block and panchayat level had not even visited this village for the entire year of 2012. During this year the Birhor in Chuhiya went through a major turmoil which went unnoticed by the district, block and the panchayat authorities. Chuhiya is not more than 5 kilometers away from the Korba town. The crisis started with one death in the village, due to snakebite. This was followed by two more deaths due to similar reasons and then three more deaths due to unidentified illness. Thus, the community saw seven deaths in one month and with no help from the state or the BALCO, their benefactor. Whenever a large number of unnatural deaths occur in a Birhor village, as per their cultural beliefs they demolish their houses and evacuate the village. As per their traditional knowledge such a large onslaught on the human lives of their community is related to some calamity imposed on them by an unknown superpower connected to the nature. And shifting away from their present location has been seen as a tested method of getting immediate relief and saving the rest of the community from the same fate, in the past by the community. Conforming to this practice the Birhor community demolished the houses built for them under Indira Awas Yojna and shifted to a new location in temporary shelters at a nearby location. Some of them had carried the bricks and raw material from their old houses to the new sites to set up a temporary shelter. At the new site they had no provision for drinking water, PDS, ICDS or access to education and health infrastructure. The villagers informed that it was only after two months of their shifting out of the old location and the Indira Awas houses that the BALCO authorities became aware of the seven deaths in the village and extended medical help. But the government was still unaware for a year. After the incident the BALCO has given them facility to access their nearby dispensary for medical problems. The government health infrastructure is situated far from the village.

This nature and practice of Birhor community, to shift to new place after any calamity strikes them, is very well known among the local functionaries of the government. The same community had in the past shifted out of another location after burning their own houses, following sudden unnatural deaths of people in that village. This is the third location where they have migrated in the last 30-40 years. It was only when the government functionaries at block level were visiting the village with the team of researchers that they became aware of the tragedy in Birhor village.

Since this community leads an isolated community life away from other communities, the information about their problems could not reach the nearby communities as well. While the government claims to have appointed Mitanins at the community level but PVTGs with specific needs such as those of Birhor, who lead their lives based on their long practiced traditional belief system, have still not been covered with such facilities. Else their plight should not have gone unnoticed right after the initial deaths in the village.

The Birhor community living in the dense forests of Narmada village in Ajgarwaha Gram Panchayat of Korba is also practicing agriculture in deep forests along seasonal water streams. The government PDS, ICDS, health and education facilities are far from their habitation. The village is not connected with a pucca road and has to be accessed on foot after the vehicles stops about a kilometer short of the hamlet.

PESA and FRA

The Provisions of the Panchayats: Extension to the Scheduled Areas Act (PESA) introduced with much fanfare in 1996. The ‘friends’ of the Adivasis, i.e., the government itself and several NGOs called the PESA Act as historic and wished that this Act will help the Adivasis to establish their claims over the land-forest-water (jamin-jangal-jal). Soon the wishes vanished into the blue. The leaders (pradhans) of Adivasis, who are tied with and dependent on the ruling classes, bureaucratic officialdom, administration, moneylenders, intermediaries, contractors, etc with thousands of interlacing interests became the elected representatives of the Adivasis exercising their traditional control over them. In many cases, the nexus of the administration, police, mining tycoons, land mafias extracted the consents of the gram-sabha under direct threat of violence and torture. In a few cases, though the gram-sabha vehemently opposed acquisitions of the land and forests, neither the governor nor the administration were interested to implement it. Hence the ‘historic’ act like PESA remained fruitless under the present structure of the state-machinery. During our field visit we observed that people were not aware of PESA and plans introduced under 5th schedule. There is absolutely no awareness at village level and even sarpanch and secretary has a very little or no knowledge about it.

In tandem with the PESA Act, the rather recent and overdue FRA 2006, was specially enacted to correct a “historical injustice” perpetrated on our tribal peoples since before Independence. The FRA provides forest rights to those who are primarily residing in the forest or forestland, or those who depend on forest or forestland for livelihoods (bonafide livelihood needs). The law recognises three types of rights: (1) land rights (individual and community); (2) right to use and collect; and (3) right to protect and conserve (Bandi, 2012). According to the National Commission on Schedule Tribe, PVTG need a distinct right i.e. habitation right which is not recognized due to lack of clarity (National Commission on Schedule Tribe, 2013). It was observed during the field visit and also raised in National Level Public Heraing on Community Forest Rights, 2013 that most of the members of Forest Rights Committees (FRCs) which is being constituted under FRA at panchayat level were not aware about the membership and their duties (National Level Public Heraing on Community Forest Rights, 2013). Chhattsgarh state government has accepted more than 2, 15,443 (2,14,668 individual and 775 community) out of 4,92,068 (4,87,332 individual and 4,736 community). But as per interview given by Sheeba Choudary, PACS in Times of India claims that “the state had received 7,07,097 lakh claims, she pointed out that the state accepted more than 2.59 lakh claims, involving an area 2.25 lakh hectors, but rejected more than 4.10 lakh claims. Quoting statistics, she pointed out that though 58 % claims were rejected the applicants were neither informed about the reason nor apprised about the procedure for go in for appeal. In most of the cases, the area mentioned in the forest right document is much less than the area for which they had made their claim” (Times of India, 2014). So through acts such as the PESA and the FRA the Indian government is trying to show that it cares for its tribal people (Ramnath, 2013).

The Central government had sanctioned Rs 100 crores in 2003 to Chhattisgarh government for development of PVTGs but it failed to improve the condition of PVTGs (No Democarcy for those living on the margins, 2007). It also failed to implement schemes like mid-day meal and Antodaya Scheme in PVTG dominated area while Integrated Child Development Scheme among the PVTGs was dysfunctional in Koriya district (ibid). Also Chhattisgarh government didn’t provide Antyodaya cards to Hill Korwa as per direction of Supreme Court (ibid).

Conclusion

The state of Chhattisgarh was formed under the pretext of development of the tribal people. 13 years has gone by Chhattisgarh has made rapid progress in the economic development but still the condition of tribes and especially PVTGs are still in the same condition if not worse. Different Schemes and laws which have primarily been based on top down approach have failed to address the concern of the PVTGs. Apathy of the state and implementing agency combined with attitude which sees them as uncivilized, ‘illiterate’, ‘superstitious’, ‘dying’ and ‘miserable’ has resulted in further marginalization of the PVTG.

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