The Jagrut Adivasi Dalit Sanghtan has appealled the tribals to have unity and fulfill Birsa Munda’s dream, save the water, forests and land and stop the country’s wealth being allegedly getting drained into the hands of the companies and the middlemen.
Under the leadership of Jagrut Adivasi Dalit Sanghtan, on the birth anniversary of Birsa Munda, the tribals of the district, taking inspiration from the martyrs, resolved to mobilize against the loot and exploitation of water, forest and land.
The tribals of the district celebrated Birsa Munda Jayanti remembering the struggle waged by Birsa Munda and his companions for freedom and basic rights.
Gathering at the Nehru Ground in Nepanagar, a rally was taken out by the tribals via Matapur Bazar to Ambedkar statue, where a general meeting was held.
At the very beginning of the programme, the pictures of Birsa Munda and Babasaheb Ambedkar were garlanded by the elders and children of the community, only to ensure their thinking could be carried forward from generation to generation.
The copies of rules of Central Government’s Forest Conservation Rules 2022, burnt in protest against the changes in the norms bypassing the constitutional rights of Gram Sabha on water, forest and land, the Sanghtan protested.
A pledge was also taken by the tribal men and women to lead a life of dignity, to fight for the constitutional rights and values of equality and freedom for all. Under the leadership of Jagrut Adivasi Dalit Sanghtan movement against changed norms of forest conservation rules is being carried in Barwani and Khargone districts too.
The struggle of martyr Birsa Munda at the age of 24 against the loot carried by then British government and moneylenders-landlords was remembered. Even after the huge martyrdom by the tribal society, today the community is allegedly deprived of its basic rights, and even today the middlemen of the companies, the British government is selling water, forest and land in the country, the Sanghtan leaders echoed in the gathering.
The gathering of tribals protested the connivance of forest department in illegal deforestation – despite forest rights claimants constantly informing the forest department and the administration about illegal deforestation and forest rights act, the legal process for implementation according to the gram sabha is stuck between the administration and the forest department. Under the guise of this, the forest wealth is being allegedly sold by the forest staff and that is why illegal felling of trees is allegedly going on everywhere! It is worth to mention that out of ten thousand claims in Burhanpur, only 343 claims have been settled according to the law – until this process is completed legally, the staff of the Forest Department will continue to sell the forest, the Sanghtan claims.
Addressing the meeting on provisions of Forest Conservation Rules 2022, Ratan Alawe voiced the government claims of doing development bypassing the constitutional provisions, handing over lakhs of hectares of forests to the company and says we are doing development! Our water is going to the companies making Cola, Limca and no water to the farmers but the government says that the tribals are harming the environment!” Such changes have been proposed in the Forest Conservation Rules 2022, so that companies can be given forests to companies without taking permission from the Gram Sabha, and without completing the claims process as per the Forest Rights Act. According to government data, about 35,000 acres of forest land is being handed over to companies every year, and now the constitutional rights of tribals are being sidelined for corporate profiteering – while vehemently opposing the new forest conservation rules was lit
Birsa got education about 70 years before independence, but even after 75 years of independence tribals are deprived of education – more than half of ten thousand schools in 89 tribal blocks in Madhya Pradesh – 5760 schools have been closed. Only between 2016-17 to 2019-20, 23,469 schools in the state were closed. Due to not getting the full value of our hard work in farming, our debt is increasing day by day, and we have to migrate to Gujarat, Maharashtra and even Karnataka, the Sanghtan claims. Despite working 16-20 hours like a bonded labor, we are neither getting wages as per the government rate, nor is any action being taken by the government against the owners who force the labourers to work for extra hours. Women and girls also face sexual violence and exploitation – is this thje development of tribals?, the Sanghtan leaders Alwae, Antaram Awase and Bai Solanki and other activists shared common view.
In the program, to fight against the loot and exploitation being done on the tribal society and all the citizens of the country, for the basic rights of education, health, for freedom and justice, for the basic rights to live life with dignity by ending barbarism. A resolution was also taken to carry forward the struggle for constitutional rights and to carry forward the struggles of the tribal martyrs.
