An open letter to MrAlex Menon, colector, Sukma district
Dear Mr Menon,
I am writing this to you with refernce to your interview to 'The Hindu' dated May 19, 012. Being a young, dynamic and enthusiastic collector, you are very much liked by the people of Sukma town as you are trying to do your best to develop infrastructure in and around the town. I appreciate your efforts to do some good to the adivasis of Sukma district as well by trying to reach out to them. However I must say a couple of things here; hope you wouldn’t call me a sceptic.
You said “Tribals or traditional forest-dwellers who occupied the land before 2005 for the purpose of agriculture were given rights on 10-acre land each. Seven thousand families, including many in Maoist-controlled areas, have benefitted by the scheme.” First thing first – who has occupied whose lands? That land belonged to the indigenous people for thousands of generations, even before there was a country called India . When British ruled India for 200 years, they forcefully occupied their land, in collaboration with local rulers like Nizam. But the indigenous people fearlessly and fiercely fought back the British; I am not sure though, if you have heard or read about adivasi leaders like Komaram Bheem, who led a heroic resistance to Nizma’s occupation of their lands. The Indian government followed the footsteps of their colonial masters and declared all the forests as government land, ignoring the very fact that the forest lands belonged to
millions of people who lived in the forest with dignity and self respect for generation. They may not have the luxurious urban life styles like the ones you and I have, but they have never been poor and never died of hunger as they always had their own land to cultivate and had full rights over the forest produce, until the so called ‘modern’ people entered forests and grabbed their land. Now, I am pretty much sure you - being one of the top level bureaucrats - are aware of the fact that the government of India and the government of Chhattisgarh have signed hundreds of MoU’s with foreign and Indian mining companies, with a clear-cut intension of handing over the forest lands for open-cast mining, which the indigenous people are resisting, exactly in the same way they resisted the British and Nizam.
All I am wondering is, if you are so much sincere in your efforts to uplift the tribals and to bring a change in their lives, why you are not questioning these secrtive MoU’s? Just like Mr Chidambaram, would you like to see the millions of displaced adivasis in the rotten gullies Mumbai slums? Hope you wouldn’t.
Regards,
Paul webster,
London
I am writing this to you with refernce to your interview to 'The Hindu' dated May 19, 012. Being a young, dynamic and enthusiastic collector, you are very much liked by the people of Sukma town as you are trying to do your best to develop infrastructure in and around the town. I appreciate your efforts to do some good to the adivasis of Sukma district as well by trying to reach out to them. However I must say a couple of things here; hope you wouldn’t call me a sceptic.
You said “Tribals or traditional forest-dwellers who occupied the land before 2005 for the purpose of agriculture were given rights on 10-acre land each. Seven thousand families, including many in Maoist-controlled areas, have benefitted by the scheme.” First thing first – who has occupied whose lands? That land belonged to the indigenous people for thousands of generations, even before there was a country called India . When British ruled India for 200 years, they forcefully occupied their land, in collaboration with local rulers like Nizam. But the indigenous people fearlessly and fiercely fought back the British; I am not sure though, if you have heard or read about adivasi leaders like Komaram Bheem, who led a heroic resistance to Nizma’s occupation of their lands. The Indian government followed the footsteps of their colonial masters and declared all the forests as government land, ignoring the very fact that the forest lands belonged to
millions of people who lived in the forest with dignity and self respect for generation. They may not have the luxurious urban life styles like the ones you and I have, but they have never been poor and never died of hunger as they always had their own land to cultivate and had full rights over the forest produce, until the so called ‘modern’ people entered forests and grabbed their land. Now, I am pretty much sure you - being one of the top level bureaucrats - are aware of the fact that the government of India and the government of Chhattisgarh have signed hundreds of MoU’s with foreign and Indian mining companies, with a clear-cut intension of handing over the forest lands for open-cast mining, which the indigenous people are resisting, exactly in the same way they resisted the British and Nizam.
All I am wondering is, if you are so much sincere in your efforts to uplift the tribals and to bring a change in their lives, why you are not questioning these secrtive MoU’s? Just like Mr Chidambaram, would you like to see the millions of displaced adivasis in the rotten gullies Mumbai slums? Hope you wouldn’t.
Regards,
Paul webster,
London
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