HUGE PROCESSION AT UDAIPUR

Rajasthan Tribals All Set To Assert Rights

B L Singhvi

THE tribal people have to launch powerful struggles for their fundamental and human rights in order to make the pro-bourgeois, pro-landlord government wake up. The latter has to realise that the common Indian mass is well determined to fight for a humane existence and that no force on the earth can make them give up their claims. This was what the CPI(M) Polit Bureau member and member of parliament Brinda Karat said on September 16, while addressing a huge gathering of tribal people of Udaipur division in Rajasthan.

Earlier, Brinda Karat led a division level procession of tribal people, organised by Samyukta Jan Sangharsh Manch (joint forum for people’s struggles) after hectic preparations, before addressing the mass meeting in front of the Scheduled Tribes Commission office in Udaipur. About national politics, she said the pro-bourgeois governments pose the country as an economic power on the basis of artificial jumps in share market, contrived by speculators, while 80 per cent of our people are living in misery. The 80 million strong tribals do not have two square meals a day after hard labour. Some 90 per cent tribal women are anaemic, not due to any natural causes but due to poverty and starvation. Thousands of tribals die every year for want of medicines, and the powers that be say the country has become an economic power! She pledged full support to the tribal masses in their struggle for their traditional rights over forests and their produce, for their human rights and against eviction. She said the central and state governments understand only one language --- the language of force.  

The CPI(M) leader regretted that while the people threw the BJP out of power at the centre, they harmed only themselves by bringing the BJP back to power in the state. For, this is a party that seeks to divide the people on the one hand and to serve the bourgeois and imperialist interests on the other.

This is precisely what the BJP is doing in Rajasthan. It is stoking the flames of communalism and casteism here, ordering firing against the agitating peasants, and throwing their leaders behind bars in order to gag the people’s voice. In tribal areas, it is transferring the PDS grains to smugglers instead of giving the same to the tribal people as famine relief. Putting behind bars the tribals including their womenfolk, putting their huts to fire, arson and destroying their crops are its usual methods to evict the tribal people from their lands. It has no guts to recover loans worth billions of rupees from capitalists, but is auctioning the houses, cattle and fields of the common people for paltry loans. There are schools in tribal areas but without teachers; there are dispensaries but without doctors. The state government has failed to provide potable water but spread the liquor trade far and wide. But the peasants of Ganganagar, Sikar and Shekhawati area have forced the BJP state government and its elitist chief minister to bow down, and the tribals too have to take to the same path. She assured the gathering that the Left would give them all-out support and do its best to safeguard their interests when the tribal bill comes up in the next session of parliament.

CPI general secretary A B Bardhan also addressed the gathering, saying that the tribals are the original owners of this earth but are being evicted by their enemies. The latter dub them as culprits for deforestation and extinction of wild species while the real culprits are the forest department officials, smugglers, poachers and contractors, all in a nexus.

Magsaysay award winner and National Advisory Committee member Aruna Roy said the central government is dependent on outside support from the Left. The latter has been instrumental in pushing through the legislation for job guarantee, for prevention of domestic violence, for right to information and for women’s right to parental property. Describing the Left as the only hope for the tribal mass, she urged the latter to maintain vigil even after the passage of the job guarantee law.

CPI(M) central committee member Hariram Chauhan dubbed the Vasundhara government as a murderer. He said the chief minister hoped to cow the peasants down by repression, but it is the peasants who gave a rebuff to her arrogance. He cautioned the tribal mass that both the Congress and BJP are parties of the exploiting classes and the people have to fight an uncompromising battle to foil the designs of these parties. State Kisan Sabha general secretary Dulichand Meena assured the tribal people full support from the peasantry.

State Janata Dal (Secular) president Arjun Detha narrated how the BJP came to power by exploiting the mass discontent against the Congress government, but is now taking one anti-people step after another.

CPI(M) district secretary B L Singhvi thanked the workers, peasants and tribals to come out in large numbers, despite heavy rain, at the call of the Samyukta Jan Sangharsh Manch. He said Rajasthan never witnessed land reforms, and 11 lakh acres of land is still in the possession of erstwhile feudal lords. This situation cannot be tolerated, he said.

Jungle Zameen Jan Andolan conveno Ramesh Nandwana threw light on the tribals’ rights over forests and severely castigated the so-called environmentalists. Former CPI MLA Meghraj Tawad said the forest lion has now got up and none must dare attack him. State CPI secretary Dushyant Ojha, peasant leaders Tara Singh Siddhu, Kanti Shankar Shukla, Jawahar Singh and Shankar Singh also addressed the gathering. The meeting was conducted by Bhanwar Singh Chadana and presided over by Nandlal Meena, Lakshmi Chand and Shankar Lal.  

The mass meeting was preceded by a huge procession through the city thoroughfares. The group of tribals that came from Gogunda area under the leadership of B L Chhanwal and Gajaram, after traversing 60 km on foot and carrying their traditional arms and drums, was the main attraction of this procession. The highly disciplined procession was widely appreciated in Udaipur.

This rally on tribals’ problems got inspiration from the success of the peasant struggle in Rajasthan, and a joint convention of the CPI(M), CPI, Janata Dal (Secular), Kisan Sabha and Jungle Zameen Jan Andolan on July 24 decided to conduct a widespread campaign on these issues. Accordingly, huge mass meetings, processions, dharnas and demonstrations were organised at several district and tehsil headquarters in August and September, and memoranda given to concerned officials. Each such action was joined by more than 1,000 persons while leaders of the sponsoring organisations widely toured through villages and asked the people to give the lists of their grievances. As many as 1,25,000 leaflets were distributed in this door to door campaign that finally culminated in the roaring success of the Udaipur procession on September 16.