The Katkaris have been cultivating this dali land in the forest right from the days of the British. During the British Raj, the tribals were given some tracts of sloping land on the periphery of the forests, for a dual purpose, namely, that the forests should be protected and the tribals’ livelihood issue should be taken care of. The world ‘dali’ has been derived from the local dialect, which means cultivating the slopes. Generally, each hamlet was given a continuous tract of land for collective cultivation. The ‘dali naik’ was the leader who was given charge of keeping records of who cultivated this tract, how many families from that hamlet, what crop they grew, and he was also responsible for paying the collective rent to the government. All the records of their activities were maintained in the dali-book given to the dali-naik. The dali-book also contained the map of the land, and its description, the names of the families cultivating the land, the purpose and conditionalities of giving the land for cultivation. The dali-naik used to religiously pay the rent to the forest department, which to this day is owner of the land. Thus, the dali cultivators had no proprietary rights as the land could be and often was taken away from them at the whim of the government.
After Independence, there were tribal uprisings in various parts of the country on the issue of land rights. There was no such uprising in Raigad district since the katkari were never organised. However, the Maharashtra government decided in 1970 to grant tittles of the cultivable dali land to the adivasis. With some revision, the government then resolved on 26th July 1971 to transfer all dali land to the tribals. After 1971, with a lot of initial enthusiasm, the government started transferring this land from the forest department to the revenue. Then the implementation stopped. Whene questions started being raised in Raigad about dali land after 1989, the government had forgotten the issue because in the meantime the jurisdiction of this issue had been transferred to the Central government. We therefore had our work cut out – to get New Delhi to listen to voices from a katkari wadi.
We went about doing this very methodically. First we collected the list of all the dali plots and the names of all the dali cultivators, from the Forest Department. Then we started conducting meetings in the adivasi hamlets we already had come to know. After the meetings we used to ask those people to contact others and give them our office addresses. We expected that by snowballing, we would disseminate information and collect more people.
We identified the weekly markets in the region. In Mangaon tahsil, there are four major market places – Goregaon, Indapur, Tala and Nijampur. On the day the weekly market functioned, we would wait at some central spot. People from neighbouring villages and wadis visited these markets. Whenever we saw tribals, we would approach them, ask them which wadi they hailed from, located on our lists whether they had any dali plots and after some discussion with them we used to hand over a note for the dali-holders from their villages, asking them to meet us on the next market day in a neighbouring temple or near a shed by the river, and then and there fix up a meeting with them.
These efforts bore fruit. On the day of the meeting, 40 – 50 people would come from different villages. Apparently, the dali land issue was crucial for them. In these meetings, we would give information about the Government Resolution of 1971 and the people would give us information about their cultivations. They used to invite us to visit their dali-plots and give us directions on how to reach their wadis. We then fixed up dates for our visits. Thus, in a month, we covered the entire tahsil. The market place became an ideal communication centre. It became increasingly easy to identify which shops the people visited and which shopkeeper would pass on our messages to the tribals about meetings and visits. This communication network made our task that much easier.
The first thing we would do in the wadi was to demarcate the boundaries of the dali plots. Each plot ranged between 40 acres to 200 acres. Sometimes, a day would not suffice to cover the entire area. We insisted that all the plot-holders should be with us during this exercise. Hence, at times, the entire wadi was with us – all of them being cultivators of the plot. During this collective exercise, we often came across instances where non-tribals from the village had encroached upon dali land. We would immediately issue a notice to the encroachers, on our Sanghathan letterhead, with the signatures of the dali cultivators as well as our signatures. This small action seemed to give the tribals tremendous strength. We then organised a public meeting at Mangaon of all those who were presently cultivating the dali plots. After this meeting, we organised a morcha (a protest march) to the Range Forest Office demanding rightful ownership of the plots. About 250 people marched in this first morcha. The people’s confidence and our enthusiasm increased. It seemed that now we had chosen the issue accurately.
Soon, thanks to the dali cultivators, our work spread from Mangaon tahsil into Roha tahsil. The morcha in both these tahsils became the ‘talk of the town’. Everybody woke up to the fact that two young girls were working with the tribals and organizing them into a Sanghathan. In the initial two years, the dali plot issue became known from the tahsil level to the state level and later also at the Centre. A glance at the date-wise review of the planning and activities undertaken during these years, will give an idea of the scope of the work.
July 12, 1990 - Morcha to the Range Forest Office
August 15, 1990 - Morcha to all Tahsil offices in the district. Notice was given regarding intensifying our action programme in future.
September 6, 1990 - 30 kilometers walk from Pen to the District capital Alibaug, in heavy rains. All Sanghathans participated in strength.
October 1990 - Dharna (sit-in) at the Range Office for dali-books
February 1990 - Distribution of dali-books begin.
August 1991 - Sanghathan starts a survey of dali land.
August 11, 1991 - Morcha to tahsil office to oppose cutting of trees and bushes on dali land.
September 6, 1991 - As no response was forthcoming from the state, a mock funeral of the government was held in front of the District Collector’s office.
September 9, 1991 - Dali cultivators give collective application for crop inspection.
November 16, 1991 - Morcha to divisional forest office in Roha.
December 12, 1991 - Gherao of Collector at Alibaug. Extracted written assurance from Collector and Divisional Forest Officer.
December 1991 - Discussion on issue in winter session of State assembly.
December 30, 1991 - Convention of all dali –cultivators in Roha declaring their resolve to carry on the struggle.
January 27, 1992 - Huge morcha to the office of the Konkan Commissioner of dali – cultivators from Raigad and cultivators of one-year tenure plots from Thane districts.
March 1992 - Discussion with Minister of Forests, Government of India.
It will be heartening to note how the people gained from strength to strength at every step of this movement.
In the very first morcha on this issue, our demand was for the dali-book. This book, like a bank passbook has the record of the plots and the names of the cultivators. Some elderly tribals had told us that these dali-books had been taken away from them by the forest officials, way back in the 70s. Not a single dali book was found in any of the wadis and hence our demand.
This morcha reached right up to the door of the RFO in Mangaon. Until then, the Mangaon police had no experience of handling such a protest march. Therefore, they did not even attempt to stop the morcha until it traveled across a courtyard and reached the RFO’s doorstep.
The RFO and his officials flatly refused that they had any dali-books. Some of the officials exhibited their ignorance when they asked what was meant by dali-land. “Why do you collect revenue from us then?” asked the tribals.
The officials then tried another ploy: ‘How can you expect these katkaris to take care of any records?” they said. “Their huts get drenched in the monsoon, or sometimes burn in forest fires. The dali-books must have got lost like that.”
At this juncture, one old man stood up amidst the crowd and calmly took out an old dirty looking package tied at his waist. He opened the folds of the cloth package and took out what looked like a lot of aged pieces of paper. These were receipts of the dali revenue paid right from 1932. “Sir”, he said to the officer “if we can take care of these bits of paper for so many years, can we also not take care of the book? Are you saying that the book must have got burnt but these pieces of paper escaped that fate?” The officer was dumbstruck. The old man who spoke was a dali-naik from Vilhe village – Kamlu Mahadu Valekar. His courage in front of the ‘big sahib’, stirred the enthusiasm amongst all of us. The Sahib gave us a written assurance that he would find and give us the Dali books within a month.
We made conscious efforts that people should understand the strength gathered from the various stages of the dali movement and from other similar issues taken up later. It was important to them to retain these memories of the struggle and the victories won on the way. In fact, the role of Sanghathans like ours is to create these memories of struggles which will feed the fire and inspire not only those who participate but will also be carried forward to the next generation of the oppressed. We had learnt this from experiences of other organisations around us.
Especially in the case of communities that do not have struggle-oriented histories, no tradition of conquering conflicts, such memories have a special role – they inspire people to fight against injustice. The struggles have to be planned in such a way that at different stages along the way, people’s confidence steadily grows. The first few stages, therefore, have to be those that bring in victories. Failures at initial stages will only result in such ‘Sarvahara’ communities further plunging into hopelessness. As Marx said, the ‘Sarvahara’ have nothing to lose but their chains of exploitation. However, the struggle should be planned keeping in mind that in our march towards victory and freedom from exploitation, our confidence in our collective strength should increase with each step.
The 30 km. walk from Pen to Alibaug, getting soaked to the skin in heavy rains, slogans echoing in the environs of Dharamatar and Karle, is so deep in our memory that to this day it is cherished by all those who were there. Five Sanghathans from Raigad district came together for this rally. On the previous day, about 4000 people came from all over the district to Pen, the starting point of the rally. The District Superintendent of Police and the Deputy Superintendent were there, trying to manage the huge crowd, pleading to us with folded hands: “Please ensure that everything will be peaceful. We have a very small police force here. Please co-operate with us.” For the poor, neglected adivasi, this was a new experience – The police pleading to them with folded hands! This incident and many other similar things that happened in that 30 km walk, added to the people’s enthusiasm and confidence. Shouting slogans like “the police are our servants, not our masters” right in front of the police; slogans like “Adivasis and labourers are human beings, not animals. They want their rights, not your charity” hearing these slogans echoed down the line in the march was an exhilarating experience for all of us. It very strongly brought home to us the fact that slogans are an extremely effective way of educating people from the most deprived and illiterate communities. It is a very simple medium to express thought, action and strength together. This is probably why slogans are so effectively used by most people’s organisations.
All through this struggle, we were conscious that this issue should be linked to a holistic perspective of development, keeping in mind the changing reality.
To clarify this point, let me give an example. When we said, “we have a right to dali land” we would always discuss about the trees, bushes, on this plot and emphasise their significance. We used to encourage people to plant a variety of trees on their dali plots, and involve children in planting papaya, drumsticks, neem, cashew, mangoes and similar trees which can help to meet their daily nutritional needs and also be useful for selling in the local markets. In each hamlet we would disseminate information to people as to how these fruits/vegetables can give their diet a much-needed boost, eg. How drumstick leaves can help pregnant women with its iron content and how the neem tree can be used for a variety of skin infections. All this information and meaning was packed in the slogans when people took collective pledges that “we will not give up our dali plots! We will not fall prey to any monetary temptations to give up our land.”
Behind these pledges was the understanding of the threats to these plots, the exploitation involved in the threats and the challenges of the future.
When we prepared the list of the dali cultivators, we insisted that the names of the spouses should also be listed. True, both the man and his wife would be on the list. The demand was that the tittles should be given to them jointly. Another demand was that the sale of these plots should be banned. A lot of thinking went into these and other such demands.
In each hamlet, we collectively discussed such issues like – who has the right to dali land? Who will be deemed as ‘heirs’ and what will be their rights? What rights will the women have? What is the woman’s status? What do we believe in? We also considered what would be the rights of the poor who were non-tribals, or from other castes. We came to the conclusion that our Sanghathan was not just of the Katkaris, but also of poor people, labourers from all communities.
We conducted conventions for Dali rights, at various levels, where we reinforced the decision to struggle for dali land. Simultaneously, a campaign was started across the district – that each wadi should send a joint letter to all political parties and to the MLAs from the district. During the next Assembly session, about 100 representatives from different Sanghathans met about 60 – 70 elected representatives in Mumbai, so that they should be apprised of the dali issue and raise it in the house. We also organised a sit-in by small children to draw attention to the issue.
The preparations for these meetings involved creating an understanding among the people about different political parties, their stand, the MLAs and their backgrounds. We also called the local MLA for a meeting and encouraged people to ask him questions about his views, his stand on the issue. All this led to enhancing the political understanding of the people.
These varied activities not only resulted in strengthening the Sanghathan – qualitatively, numerically and geographically, but it also gave a tremendous boost to the confidence of the people and to us. People, themselves, were now helping the organisation to spread. Committees were being formed in each wadi and it was made mandatory to have at least two women on each committee. As a result, more women started becoming visible in the Sanghathan’s work.
To date, three government surveys have been conducted to measure the dali lands. Of these, we rejected two because they were conducted without taking the dali cultivators into confidence. These surveys came up with the finding that only one-fourth of the total land was under cultivation----a result that was suitable to the government to transfer this meager land to the tribals. The Sanghathan, therefore, forced the government to conduct a third survey. This time, the District Forest Officer himself happened to be a tribal. He took the initiative and formed a team comprising of forest officials, Sanghathan activists and regional heads. This survey was conducted in 6 months and completed by the beginning of 2000. Around that time, the Minister for Forests at the Centre also announced the decision that this land would be transferred to the tribals. All these efforts have led to the creation of an authentic, official record of dali-lands today. We will, probably, have to step up the heat again for implementation of land distribution according to the 1971 resolution, based on this record. We are also considering going to the court for speedy implementation.
Recently, in April 2001, representatives of all dali- Sanghathans in Raigad district undertook an indefinite fast for speedy and accurate implementation of the 1971 resolution. Our organisation played the lead role in this action. We decided to organise this action at Alibaug, the district capital and not at Mumbai. This decision stood us in good stead. Not only was it more convenient for the participating Sanghathans, but also MLAs and political leaders in the district across party lines, expressed their support to us. They all made independent efforts to contact the other MLAs in the House as the Assembly Session was on. With the active intervention of late Mr. Arun Mehta, then member of the Legislative Council, the Chief Minister gave us a hearing on the very first day of the fast. He reiterated his government’s commitment to the 1971 resolution and gave the assurance that the trees and bushes on dali plots will not be cut down. This action created a suitable impression on the District Collector as well as the forest officials.
While battling for the rights to dali-land we were confronted by many other problems, too. These empowered the Sanghathan to take on wider issues. These issues were about growing industrialization, threats arising out of so-called ‘development’, issues arising from caste differences, issues of injustice to and atrocities on women, etc. Selecting the appropriate and pressing issue was always a challenge to the Sanghathan.
Source: "For Justice... For Dignity... For Equality" A Story of the Katkaris of Raigad by Ulka Mahajan, Sarvahara Jan Andolan. Email: ulkamahajan@rediffmail.com