Tribals of 191 villages of the two districts of Shahbad division enraged at being deprived of basic amenities turn to Maoism

By Arun Kumar

Rohtas Garh (Rohtas) : Tribals of 191 villages of the two districts of Rohtas and Kaimur in Bihar, located in the foothills of the Vindhya mountain ranges enraged at being deprived of basic amenities like drinking water, primary education and medicare turn to Maoism.

They have been unjustly deprived from firewood, fodder, small timber and minor forest produce like tendu leaves, mahua, chiraunji etc by forst, police and civil administration officials in contravention of National Forest Policy provisions here.

About 149 villages under 16 panchayats of Kaimur district and 42 villages under 5 panchayats of Rohtas district are inhabited by Kharwar, Cheron, Oraon, Ho, Kol, Munda, Dhangar and Benga tribes.

A classified report sent to the police headquarters in Patna by Shahabad DIG, Umesh Kumar Singh speaks volumes about the plight of these tribals. The report which contains a detailed survey of these villages, says that a drought like situation prevailing there for the past three years coupled with absence of alternative irrigation facilities even after 58 years of Independence has led to repeated crop failure. Even check dams for utilising water from waterfalls have not been created in these areas.

The report also focusses on the absence of of job-generating schemes such as Food for Work programme in these villages. Referring to the absence of even basic medicare facilities in these villages, the report says even the block hospitals have become non-functional.

The survey, appended with the classified report, says except for Sikandarpur, Ulha, Lutru Tola and Sidhanpura villages under Mahmadpur panchayat of Rohtas, electricity has not reached the remaining 187 villages of the two districts.

There are mostly primary schools in these tribal villages but teachers posted there seldom visit the schools as the villages are located in dense forest areas made inaccesssible in the absence of roads.

"With the closure of all cement factories - other than the Kalyanpur Cement Factory at Banjari which resumed its operation recently - the area does not have any other industry to generate employment for these tribals" says Shanti Oraon of Harahiya village while talking to this human rights activist.

Kariman Oraon Haraiyadih village said "Local police and forest guards take away even the mahua fruits collected by the tribals. All the government employees exploit us>"

The DIG report while referring to these problems states that the villagersare scared and fed up with the local police, forest guards, mukhiyas and government employees and view them as their enemies. The CPI (Maoist) leadeship exploit these tribals to woo them to their their ideology thus turning the area into a breeding ground for Left extremism says the report while suggesting initiation of development schemes to check the trend.

Suffering from perpetual water scarcity, the villages in Rohtas and Kaimur districts have been oozing out Maoists in frustration.

The Tirhut DIG report would be considered as an eye-opener to the advocates of liberalisation and globalisation sans pro-poor
schemes.
(The Report was also carried in the Patna edition of The Times Of India, June 24,2005 issue as the writer is associated with the paper as a journalist. Otherwise a noted human rights activist, Kumar is professionaly a journalist too.)