The logic of electoral politics should have prompted the BJP to undermine the Salwa Judum, which was to begin with an initiative of Congress MLA Mahendra Karma. Instead, we see a complete convergence between the two .
The Salwa Judum was not just an initiative by Mahendra Karma – it had full state backing all along, and that’s why both Congress and the BJP support it.
Salwa Judum was probably started by the police, and it grew after Mahendra Karma got involved. It suited the BJP to have him lead it. It also suited Karma because he had led similar movements in the past. Karma has always sided with the BJP against his own party.
At the ground level, however, there are workers from both parties who are not happy with the activities of the Salwa Judum. Mostly, it has been people at the top in Chhattisgarh, including senior state government functionaries, and the security establishment in Delhi, particularly in the home ministry, who have colluded in establishing the Judum and keeping it alive.
Why has there been no opposition to the Salwa Judum from among local civil society?
That is primarily because there is no Adivasi middle class. Besides, all journalists in Chhattisgarh are non-Adivasis, and depend quite a lot on handouts and advertisements from the industry and the government for their livelihood.
It is practically impossible for them, in such circumstances, to write critical stories. And if ever someone was to report on the other side, they are accused of being Maoist.
There have even been cases of some local journalists being beaten up or threatened by Salwa Judum cadre and others arrested under the draconian Chhattisgarh Special Public Security Act, 2005, for speaking out.
Just who comprise the Salwa Judum?
The Salwa Judum leadership is mostly made up of non-tribals. There are some Adivasi leaders, but they are mostly people close to Karma. The leadership is, therefore, almost entirely the non-tribal exploitative strata. There are also tribal SPOs, who have killed too many people to go back.
Then you have the ordinary people, who have been forced out of villages into camps, in a classic case of strategic hamletting, of the kind practised in Vietnam. They were forced to go on Salwa Judum processions to enlist new villages, and threatened with death and their villages burnt down if they refused.
And accompanying them on those expeditions, where they empty out villages, are the security forces — the local armed police, the CRPF and the India Reserve Battalions. There is obviously money involved as well. Many Salwa Judum leaders now have big houses and their lifestyles have become more affluent than before.
A lot of funds, mostly unaccounted, are being channelled into this area by the state to fund the Judum. Also, most of the government contracts for construction activity now go to these people.
Is it true that Salwa Judum has been aiding the corporate sector in its area of influence?
It is not as simple as a direct link between industry and the Salwa Judum. But it is related to the idea that the area needs to be sanitised so that industry can come in.
In that, people rooting for the Salwa Judum also root for industry. Mahendra Karma, for one, completely backs the Tata and Essar steel projects there, and he and his sons have virtually been the companies’ agents to actively get the inhabitants of villages in the Lohandiguda and Bhansi/Dhurli areas off their land so that it could be acquired for the projects.
Also, Essar has started funding, through the Essar Steel Regional Development Plan, the building of resettlement colonies even before they have got consent for acquisition of land. Now it’s curious as to why a private sector company should fund such colonies unless it’s certain that it would get the land it wishes to acquire.
Is there something inherently wrong with the idea of local self-defence committees?
May be there is nothing wrong in, say, patrolling one’s own village. But when locals get drawn into the counter-insurgency grid that’s where the problems start.
Of course, the state claims the Salwa Judum was a spontaneous people’s movement against the Naxalites. Even if that were true, it doesn’t justify the patently illegal activities they have indulged in, including killing children, and raping women in camps and villages.
Objectively, yes, the police has been able to get informers as never before, but were one to look at the police outposts established in Naxal-dominated areas, they are little more than fortified enclaves cut off from everything else. At the same time, the Naxalites have got more recruits than ever before.
These are people whose families have been killed and raped, or whose villages have been burnt. On the whole, there has been a massive increase in violence after the formation of the Salwa Judum. Culturally, all life has stopped.
There have, for instance, been no local festivals ever since the Salwa Judum started. Ironically, one of the reasons quoted by the government for the Salwa Judum’s existence was that the Maoists were interfering with local customs, but now there are none left.
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Interview/Nandini_Sundar_Prof_of_Sociology_Delhi_School_of_Economics/articleshow/3158067.cms
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
Here Literacy is Unimportant
22 June, 2008
“ Quota! Hum aur hamaare bacche quota ke baare mein sochte bhi nahin hain ," says Kantibhai Vasava with part resignation, all humour. "Our children don't even survive school, so how will they make it to the quota lines of college?"
Vasava is a tribal from South Gujarat. He is presently squatting with two dozen tribal brethren on the floorboards of an idea that has begun changing their lives. Call it education. Situate it on a 10-acre campus and identify it as a school. Usher tribal children in,to stay, and categorise it as a residential school.
Two years ago the Vasant Niwasi Shala (that name may just change rural education as we know it) was accommodated within the brick-knitted complex of the Adivasi Academy, a research centre of Bhasha, a non-profit organisation pivoted on adivasi concerns. The school could go two ways-either serve as a conduit to good government schools or a preparatory ground for state-level exams. Situated in the eastern tribal belt of Gujarat, in a village called Tejgadh, the school is backed by a statuesque hill called Koraj and circled by fields of future corn. This is a utopia made more ideal by the fact that it throws all rules out of its indigo window.
The children decide what they want to wear, whether they'd rather have shoes or slippers (they opt for slippers-easier to kick off), and the vote even extends to their attendance of ‘class'-an informal congress helmed by a teacher who could be holding forth on the lawn or in the gazebos or underneath a Saptaparani tree. The traditional age-based stratification of students gives way to mixed migration, so children, no matter the age, can sit in with any teacher, on any subject, and up and leave, should something else, like the on-site tactile museum of tribal culture or the 27,000-strong library, for example, arrest their attention. Because there is no punishment, there is no crime.
The syllabus is an improbable grouping of nature studies, tribal culture, language and history, art and craft, dance and music, drama and farming. This is the empirical portion of their education that receives no attention in government schools, and one that is valiantly working to reinstate the children's fast-falling indigenous identity. However, the aim of this schooling is not just to confine tribal children to a local ambit but to also acquaint them with wider disciplines. So maths, science, geography, languages, and social sciences are also co-opted into the programme; not rendered in formulaic inscriptions, but through audio-visual engagements that administer knowledge first, characters later.
The construct of this non-formal, unorthodox model of education had its cornerstone formally laid in the mind of Ganesh Devy-litterateur, freewheeler and social reformist-in 2004. This was when, via an article in Little Magazine, he critically examined the net worth of the script in the index of learning. "Scripts have nothing to do with knowledge," he held. "They have been an organised means, by the state, of institutionalising language. Many tribals have no coded equivalent of their language, but they are no less intelligent than ‘literate' individuals. Unfortunately illiteracy is equated with ignorance and this is a social stigma many tribals are branded with. How do we remove this stigma? Through a system of education that begins with learning instead of character recognition. One problem with writing is it divides reason from image. A unified focus on learning is arrived at if scripts are avoided for a while."
And so scripts enter this school unhurriedly. The knowledge of things inspires gradually a curiosity to spell them. "Unlike most schools where learning is almost immediately imposed through written characters, here a student learns to write as late as six months into his residence, at his own pace," offers Vasant Rathwa, school programme coordinator. "And unlike village schools, where the uniform medium of instruction is Gujarati and students who speak tribal dialects lose out, here, teachers speak Gujarati, Hindi, and also Rathwi and Dungri Bhili, the two primary languages of these children. A software we have even teaches them to read English phonetically; and excited about ‘speaking' the language, they then want to learn its meaning."
Between the age of six and 14 they come, with little or no experience of schooling, from villages where government schools are only ornamental proof of policy, and teachers keep embellished attendance records to hurry salary increments. "The success rate of tribal children from government schools is very low," ventures Sonal Baxi, academic coordinator at Bhasha. "And so they remain in an unremitting cycle of illiteracy and migration to cities as cheap labour, taking their children with them. Their defence is ‘What's the use of education?' This is why it took us almost a month to convince them to send their children to our school, despite admission being free. At first we had 45 students, and now, 60."
There is no upper limit, they'll admit all who come. But the school's success is not its robust roll call, and not even in the citation (Centre of Excellence) the academy received from the ministry of tribal affairs this year. It isn't the regard it gained in the sight of the district primary education department that dispatched 50 of its coordinators to the academy to be oriented in tribal culture and language complexities. In fact, its singular success is a narrow failure. This April, 35 students sat for the 6th-standard entrance exam to the government-run Eklayva model residential schools. "Their cut-off percentage was 60 and one of our students almost made it with 59 per cent... after only two years of schooling," says Devy. "And when I prove that our children can compete equally with state-level students, I will go to the ministry of education, campaign for this model and demand that the number of school years be reduced as well. My aim, after all, is not just to educate a small number of tribals but to improve the education system on the whole."
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Review/Here_literacy_is_unimportant/articleshow/3152492.cms
“ Quota! Hum aur hamaare bacche quota ke baare mein sochte bhi nahin hain ," says Kantibhai Vasava with part resignation, all humour. "Our children don't even survive school, so how will they make it to the quota lines of college?"
Vasava is a tribal from South Gujarat. He is presently squatting with two dozen tribal brethren on the floorboards of an idea that has begun changing their lives. Call it education. Situate it on a 10-acre campus and identify it as a school. Usher tribal children in,to stay, and categorise it as a residential school.
Two years ago the Vasant Niwasi Shala (that name may just change rural education as we know it) was accommodated within the brick-knitted complex of the Adivasi Academy, a research centre of Bhasha, a non-profit organisation pivoted on adivasi concerns. The school could go two ways-either serve as a conduit to good government schools or a preparatory ground for state-level exams. Situated in the eastern tribal belt of Gujarat, in a village called Tejgadh, the school is backed by a statuesque hill called Koraj and circled by fields of future corn. This is a utopia made more ideal by the fact that it throws all rules out of its indigo window.
The children decide what they want to wear, whether they'd rather have shoes or slippers (they opt for slippers-easier to kick off), and the vote even extends to their attendance of ‘class'-an informal congress helmed by a teacher who could be holding forth on the lawn or in the gazebos or underneath a Saptaparani tree. The traditional age-based stratification of students gives way to mixed migration, so children, no matter the age, can sit in with any teacher, on any subject, and up and leave, should something else, like the on-site tactile museum of tribal culture or the 27,000-strong library, for example, arrest their attention. Because there is no punishment, there is no crime.
The syllabus is an improbable grouping of nature studies, tribal culture, language and history, art and craft, dance and music, drama and farming. This is the empirical portion of their education that receives no attention in government schools, and one that is valiantly working to reinstate the children's fast-falling indigenous identity. However, the aim of this schooling is not just to confine tribal children to a local ambit but to also acquaint them with wider disciplines. So maths, science, geography, languages, and social sciences are also co-opted into the programme; not rendered in formulaic inscriptions, but through audio-visual engagements that administer knowledge first, characters later.
The construct of this non-formal, unorthodox model of education had its cornerstone formally laid in the mind of Ganesh Devy-litterateur, freewheeler and social reformist-in 2004. This was when, via an article in Little Magazine, he critically examined the net worth of the script in the index of learning. "Scripts have nothing to do with knowledge," he held. "They have been an organised means, by the state, of institutionalising language. Many tribals have no coded equivalent of their language, but they are no less intelligent than ‘literate' individuals. Unfortunately illiteracy is equated with ignorance and this is a social stigma many tribals are branded with. How do we remove this stigma? Through a system of education that begins with learning instead of character recognition. One problem with writing is it divides reason from image. A unified focus on learning is arrived at if scripts are avoided for a while."
And so scripts enter this school unhurriedly. The knowledge of things inspires gradually a curiosity to spell them. "Unlike most schools where learning is almost immediately imposed through written characters, here a student learns to write as late as six months into his residence, at his own pace," offers Vasant Rathwa, school programme coordinator. "And unlike village schools, where the uniform medium of instruction is Gujarati and students who speak tribal dialects lose out, here, teachers speak Gujarati, Hindi, and also Rathwi and Dungri Bhili, the two primary languages of these children. A software we have even teaches them to read English phonetically; and excited about ‘speaking' the language, they then want to learn its meaning."
Between the age of six and 14 they come, with little or no experience of schooling, from villages where government schools are only ornamental proof of policy, and teachers keep embellished attendance records to hurry salary increments. "The success rate of tribal children from government schools is very low," ventures Sonal Baxi, academic coordinator at Bhasha. "And so they remain in an unremitting cycle of illiteracy and migration to cities as cheap labour, taking their children with them. Their defence is ‘What's the use of education?' This is why it took us almost a month to convince them to send their children to our school, despite admission being free. At first we had 45 students, and now, 60."
There is no upper limit, they'll admit all who come. But the school's success is not its robust roll call, and not even in the citation (Centre of Excellence) the academy received from the ministry of tribal affairs this year. It isn't the regard it gained in the sight of the district primary education department that dispatched 50 of its coordinators to the academy to be oriented in tribal culture and language complexities. In fact, its singular success is a narrow failure. This April, 35 students sat for the 6th-standard entrance exam to the government-run Eklayva model residential schools. "Their cut-off percentage was 60 and one of our students almost made it with 59 per cent... after only two years of schooling," says Devy. "And when I prove that our children can compete equally with state-level students, I will go to the ministry of education, campaign for this model and demand that the number of school years be reduced as well. My aim, after all, is not just to educate a small number of tribals but to improve the education system on the whole."
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Review/Here_literacy_is_unimportant/articleshow/3152492.cms
Poor health services plague Thane Adivasi area
Sunday June 22, 2008
SAYVAN (Thane district): “I brought my wife to the Sayvan primary health centre when she was bitten by a dog, but they asked me Rs. 50 before treating her,” said Janu Babar. He did not know that treatment for dog bite is free for Adivasis. They just have to produce a below poverty line (BPL) card. If they don’t bring the card, they will have to pay Rs. 50 as refundable deposit. Eventually, Janu paid Rs. 120 to get his wife Devli treated in a private clinic.
This was one of the issues raised at a public hearing on the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) at the Sayvan PHC in Dahanu taluk on Friday. The exercise is part of community-based monitoring of health services being conducted in five districts of Maharashtra.
Out of Maharashtra’s annual budget of Rs, 1,000 crore under the NRHM, only Rs. 860 crore was spent last year, according to Dr. Nitin Jadhav of Sathi, State coordinator for community-based monitoring. Before the hearing, NGOs conducted a study of the five villages which come under the PHC, catering for a population of 41,000.
A report card of the study presented at the hearing, presided over by Dr. Anand Phadke of CEHAT, an NGO, revealed that the situation is quite serious in four villages where the people did not even recognise the multipurpose health worker (MPW). In some cases, the auxiliary nurse and midwife (ANM) did not perform her duties. Medicines are in short supply and the State has no stock of tetanus injection. The ANMs spend their money to buy it and get reimbursement later.
The area, inhabited by Adivasis, has reported cases of malnutrition, infant and maternal mortality. Last year in one hamlet alone, four infant deaths were reported. However, the NRHM is supposed to provide “untied funds,” as Dahanu taluk health officer Madhukar Rathod pointed out. At the public hearing at Ganjad on Thursday, he said it was raining money. Each PHC gets Rs. 1.75 lakh while sub-centres are given Rs. 10,000 for expenses.
Of the Rs. 32-crore budget for Thane district last year under the NRHM, Rs.19 crore was spent, Dr. Rathod said. Despite all this money coming in, the situation had not improved. More serious was the problem of doctors not attending to patients and people having to pay for services.
At the Ganjad hearing, an Adivasi complained that she was refused treatment for a badly cut hand when she went to the PHC at 7 a.m. on a Sunday. She had to go to another hospital, where 18 stitches were put. When the two PHC doctors were asked to explain, they said it was too early on a Sunday and so they did not treat the woman, according to Dr. Jadhav.
When Bharati Mahale took her sister-in-law to the Sayvan PHC for delivery, no doctor was present and she was asked to take the pregnant woman to the sub-district hospital at Kasa, 15 km away. The ambulance driver charged her Rs. 150 for diesel. At Kasa, the doctor made them wait and when Bharati lost her patience, she was almost assaulted. Her sister-in-law was then taken to a private hospital and Bharati had to pay another Rs. 300 towards diesel charges.
It is not only patients, doctors too are suffering. T.R. Bansode, medical officer of the Sayvan PHC, said he had not been paid salary since March. The PHC itself is a shambles, there is no water and electricity. The operation theatre remains closed and the delivery room is dusty. The laboratory is non-functional.
The rain of money has not helped much. Kavita Raote, who had a second daughter three months ago, said the infant was not vaccinated. It was a home delivery, but no ANM visited her within a week, which is mandatory. Kavita is entitled to Rs. 800 under the Matrutva Anudan Yojana and Rs. 500 under the Janini Suraksha Yojana, but she got no money under either scheme.
http://www.hindu.com/2008/06/22/stories/2008062260321100.htmAdivasi woman gang-raped at Dahivat
| |
| Jalgaon, July 02: A four-member-gang, who entered into a hut of an Adivasi couple at Dahivat-Shivar in the district early on Tuesday, raped an Adivasi woman and fled with small cash and some grass-cutting-instruments, police said on Wednesday. Police said that the four members entered into an agriculture field owned by one Madhukar wagh, where Dilvarsingh Sonawane and his wife were asleep in their hut. The gang knocked the door, beaten up the couple, tied Dilvarsingh by a rope to his bullock-cart and gang-raped his wife. Later, they took away cash of Rs 60, some grass-cutting instruments and fled under the cover of darkness. On a complaint by a woman, police have registered offence against the four unidentified persons. DSP Santosh Rastogi, visited the rural hospital, where the woman victim is being treated at Mehunbare and assured that police will arrest the culprits very soon, police added. |
http://www.zeenews.com/articles.asp?aid=452642&sid=REG
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)