Choosing the forests over its people

On October 25, this year, eight malnurioushed children were refused treatment by the Nutrition and Rehabilitation Center in Badrachalam, Khammam district of Andhra Pradesh. They were the children of the Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) from the Naxal-hit Dantewada/Bijapur districts of Chhattisgarh.

Apparently, the Project Officer of the Integrated Tribal Development Authority of Badrachalam, at the behest of the visiting Schedule Tribe Committee (consisting of MLAs from Congress, Telugu Desam Party and CPI-M), had passed a written order to stop giving medical treatment to ‘non-tribes’ and ‘non-BPL (Below Poverty Line)’ families.

Unfortunately, the Gotti Koya, or the Muria from Dantewada/Bijapur District, who had to flee villages that were burnt by the Salwa Judum and the police, and were under the threat of Maoist violence, have been badly hit by this move. They fulfil the criteria but lack the documentation to prove that they do.

On September 23, the young Madvi Nanda and his wife Chukki approached an NGO-run mobile health clinic. Their 10-day-old infant had stopped taking his mother’s milk and their elder son, Budra, looked severely anaemic.

They were IDPs (Internally Displaced People) from Chhattisgarh’s Duled village in Konta block. Madvi Nanda said that he had come to Khammam district to escape the threats and violence of the Salwa Judum. Back in their village, they owned around 20 acres of land, but in  Khammam, they survived by doing manual labour in the mirrchi fields, tendu patta and cotton fields, for `60 a day.

When Chukki became pregnant, she couldn’t go to work and the income of the family, without a ration card, fell by half. Hunger and malnutrition followed. The entire family was then taken to the hospital. After four days of treatment they were referred to the Nutrition and Rehabilitation Centre, run by the ITDA at Badrachalam.

At the NRC, the authorities found, to their horror, that the youngest son, now 15-days-old, weighed only 1.5 kg, and the older Budra, around three-years-old, weighed only 4.8 kg. They were both classified with Grade 4 malnutrition and treatment began immediately. The mother and children were given three meals a day along with medicines till October 12. They were discharged when their condition normalised. NRC recommended a diet of milk, mutton, vegetables, green leaves, fruits, etc, for three months to help

improve their health.

Then came the rude shock.

At the behest of the Tribal Welfare Ministry, ITDA passed a note that ensured the Muria/Gotti Koya from Chhattisgarh couldn’t get a single meal at the Nutrition and Rehabilitation Centre of Badrachalam.

P Balaraju, the chairman of the Scheduled Tribe Committee, who made those recommendations, is also the Minister for Tribal Welfare, Andhra Pradesh.

As with any issue, context here is important. There is a history behind this hunger, that explains the rudeness of the shock that greeted Madvi Nanda’s family.

The IDPs from Chhattisgarh are in a perpetual limbo. They’re occasionally pitted against the local Adivasi tribes of Andhra Pradesh over minimal resources and neither state government (Andhra Pradesh or Chhattisgarh) is willing to take responsibility for them. At the same time, no civil government department is capable of undermining the arm-twisting policies of the Andhra Pradesh Forest Department that wants to send them back to the mismanaged Salwa Judum camps of Chhattisgarh.

Previously in the scorching summer, the 203 IDP settlements, with over 16,000 IDPs had to survive in artificially-created drought-like conditions, thanks to the Forest Department. The department ensured that no handpumps were installed in the settlements where natural water sources had dried up when summer began.

In 2007, civil rights lawyer Balagopal had filed three writ petitions on behalf of the numerous families of Gotti Koya and managed to get a stay order on the demolition of their homes by the Forest Department. Yet the Forest Department continued to break down IDP settlements in other parts of Khammam in summer. It argued in the High Court against the stay order, stating that the Gotti Koya should claim their rights to livelihood and to life in Chhattisgarh and not in Andhra Pradesh; that they were a threat to the local population and that they were damaging the forests.

Justice CV Ramulu dismissed the vacate stay petitions filed by the Forest Department and upheld the rights of the tribals to live in the reserved forests.

The Forest Department claims that they ‘need to protect the jungle’ from the slash-and-burn cultivation of the Gotti Koya, which has been contested as an exaggerated claim. There is very little doubt that the Gotti Koya/Muria have damaged the forests in Khammam and that they’re not managing higher yields from the amount of land they ‘secretly’ cultivate. But, that is because the land they cultivate has no irrigation facility when compared to the irrigated stretches of land that are cultivated by the Reddys or the Koyas.

And then, there are the patta scams.

Even local Koya and the older Muria tribals, living on non-reserved forest are preyed on by ‘promises’ of the legal deed — the patta. In the village of Amdalpeta in Chintur Mandal of Khammam, two non-tribals had taken Rs 300 from each family and promised them pattas. The residents of Amdalpeta themselves speak of another case where a lawyer managed to swindle Rs 2,00,00 from the tribals for a patta.

“You can either save the tribal or the forest,” says a DFO who deals with extensive deforestation by the Gotti Koya in Khammam district.

But, who are the forest department officials protecting the jungles for?

The answer is obvious.

The Adivasi — the Santhals, the Kondhs, the Murias, the Koyas and the Baiga — weren’t ever consulted when the British laid the foundations of a law that would separate them from their forests. It is ironic that the government tries to protect the forests from the tribals but allows the mining companies and corporations to run amok in the jungle.

Between 1980 and 1997, the Ministry of Environment and Forests granted 34,527 hectares of the forest in 317 mining leases. During 1997-2005, this increased to 60,476 hectares of the forest in 881 mining leases. Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh may try his best to protect the forests and the odds are loaded against him, but who is protecting the tribal from exploitation and the Forest Department?

The Naxalites? The Home Minister? Or the Tribal Welfare Minister’s team that claims that the Muria from Chhattigarh are neither tribals nor poor simply because they can’t prove it?