EXILE AND ROOTS

Banned from their forests, the adivasis of Melghat are eternally condemned, reports Sanjukta Sharma

The villages of Koha, Khund and Bohri around Amraviti district in Maharashtra are located on a huge sprawl of swampy land. It is the new, tailor-made habitat for 500-odd Korru adivasis of Melghat. The three villages share one school, one health centre and one anganwadi. A cluster of land plots lie next to each other, assigned to the villagers by the government. There are no trees to feed from, no wood for fuel, just the pain of leaving their land and the lush forests of Chikaldara.

A few months ago, forest officials forced the villagers to relocate from the old villages where they have been living for generations. The old villages, also called Koha, Khund and Bohri, were part of the forest territory assigned for the Tiger Project of Melghat. For the sake of 79 tigers and a few more to be dumped from the urban jungles of Powai, Mumbai, 22 villages have been forced to leave their ancient land. It was a parallel drive launched along with the Tiger Preservation Project that begun in 1972 and has taken off aggressively in 2003-2004 - the same year 1,000 adivasi children died in Melghat.

Originally, six adivasi villages fell under the Tiger Project area. By 1980, 59 villages were included and recently, 22 villages were assessed for compensation and ordered to leave. The forest department assessed their property, ignoring every other valuable asset that these villagers had, and allocated land in the new villages with their own calculations. "In the last two years we have extended the total area of the project to 1,600 sq km and rehabilitated three villages. There are proposals for more rehabilitation," says Nitin Kakodkar, conservator of forests, Amravati. Like all governments do, displacement here is justified as 'rehabilitation'. Around the same area of Chikaldara where these three villages were uprooted, work has begun on three dam projects that will displace several villages.

For the hungry, displacement brought more woes than they were prepared to grapple with. In the forests, they had the right to natural resources; for years they have been sustained by their ecology which they protected. But that has been denied to them now.

Here, the government retail store charges much more than they used to pay earlier. Rice is Rs 8 per kg. Vegetables are not available. Water is scarce and disease and malnutrition are rampant. Kisen Kende Patodkar, a 40-year-old farmer, misses the abundance of his lost land. He owned 10 acres of land and although his family wasn't free of disease and deprivation, they were at least assured of water and forest resources. "The jungle was much better than this. None of us got the land that we were entitled to. The forest officials measured the land we used to have and promised to give us land of the same size. They also promised to allot landless villagers with two acres each. Later, they miscalculated and gave us land randomly. I own much less land than I used to. So we earn less and our children eat less," says Kisen.

Jairam and Ramkali Jawarkar used to live in the old Koha village, almost inside the forests. Jairam was landless, but they managed their day's share of food from the village anganwadi, and with plants from the forest. Now Jairam owns only two acres of land. Two months ago, his five-year-old daughter, Sakshi, died of chicken pox. It was impossible to take her to the primary health centre every second day. "The health workers and doctors from the centres don't visit us frequently. The doctor had come once to give some medicine. But she did not recover," says Ramkali, mother of the dead child.

But Sakshi's death is not the only example of helplessness. There have been two deaths of malnourished children in Koha ever since they were resettled in the new land. Many more parents are grappling with the same crisis. A few families have returned to their old homes, only to be badgered and brutally forced to leave. Phulbai Kasdekar, 50, of Khund village, and her husband, a farmer, left their son behind in the school and walked three days to reach their home. After a few days, forest officials forced the other villagers out. Phulbai, her husband and a few others, fled back to the new village. But like many others, they have not given up hope. They want to go back to their ancient roots.
 

July 31, 2004