WOMEN
IN KAIMUR RECLAIM THEIR RIGHT TO LAND
By Kalyani Menon- Sen
The Kaimur
region encompasses four districts of the State of Uttar Pradesh in India.
Situated on the eastern border of the State, this area is defined by the
thickly forested Kaimur hill range, which spreads over nearly 7000 square kilometers and extends into the neighboring States. The area is rich in mineral resources – primarily coal and iron ore – and is dotted with mines and
power plants.
On paper, almost
half of this region is classified as forest land and is under the control of
the Forest Department. In reality, as much as 40 percent of the area classified
as forest does not have a single tree and has been under cultivation for at
least a century. Despite the enactment of land ceiling legislation and a stated
policy of distributing ceiling-surplus land to landless cultivators, the dominant castes continue to control huge
holdings. The Dalits and Adivasis of the Kaimur region are primarily wage
workers, scratching out a precarious existence on tiny plots of degraded land
while living in perpetual fear of eviction by the Forest Department which has
proclaimed them illegal occupants of forest land.
The situation of
Dalits and Adivasis in Kaimur today must be understood in its historical
context. Many of these communities were forest-dwellers in the past, living in
tiny hamlets and carrying out subsistence agriculture in natural clearings.
Although technically subjects of the zamindars, their way of life was
largely allowed to continue until the forests themselves came under attack and
large-scale felling began, fueled by the demand for timber generated by the
expanding railway network. The landowners now incorporated the cleared forest
land into their agricultural holdings, and the erstwhile forest-dwelling
communities became bonded cultivators. With the passage of the Forest Act in
1933, the government assumed ownership of
private forests but no compensation was paid to the forest-dwelling
communities, who were forced to abandon their hamlets and move from village to
village as more and more forest land came under the control of the Forest
Department.
The land reform
legislation enacted at Independence, while intended to benefit the landless, actually
worked against their interests. The landowners adopted every tactic they could
to subvert the “land to the tiller” policy – huge holdings were parcelled out
on paper to various members of the extended family, some unproductive or
non-agricultural land was surrendered to the government with great fanfare, and
communities who had been living and working on the same tiny farms for
generations were evicted to neutralise the possibility that they would press
their legitimate claims as tillers.
These are the
communities who in 2000 organised themselves under the banner of the Kaimur
Kshetra Mahila Mazdoor Kisan Sangharsh Samiti (Struggle Committee of
Women, Farmers and Workers of the Kaimur region). They are among the poorest of
the poor in this State which is home to the largest segment of India's poor.
The region which they inhabit ranks among the lowest on all indicators of human
development. The dominant castes exercise near-absolute power and control both
the administration and public services. Dalit and Adivasi children seldom
complete even primary school, and Dalit families have little or no access to
health and social services. There are a few NGOs who function mainly as
subcontractors for government programmes and whose interventions do not cover so-called
forest villages.
Forest-dwelling communities are also exploited by the Forest
Department. Although the land they cultivate is unforested and severely
degraded – and has been so for generations – they do not have legal title to it
and are constantly threatened with eviction or legal action and forced to pay
protection money to petty officials to deflect the false cases of illegal
felling and timber theft that are filed against them. The caste and economic
solidarity between the landlords, forest officials and police – who constitute
the core of the powerful 'timber mafia' in the state - renders Dalit and
Adivasi communities even more vulnerable to extortion and brutal violence. The
fact that the Kaimur forests spill over into the neighbouring State of
Jharkhand, much of which is under the control of Maoist insurgent groups waging
war against the Indian State, increases the vulnerability of these communities
– any young man or boy who oversteps the caste line can be picked up by the
police and held in jail indefinitely under charges of being a Maoist rebel.
Custodial deaths are common and are overlooked if not condoned even by the
judicial system and the media.
The first
organised action by the women of the Kaimur region was a spontaneous protest in
Basoli village, where two children and a woman were killed as Forest Department
officials tried to demolish the Adivasi hamlet and plant trees in its
place. The women of Basoli reacted with
rage, blocked the road and prevented the demolition by physically chasing away
the officials. This was the first time the Adivasis had resisted eviction. The
news spread fast and women from surrounding villages, all of which were
under attack by the Forest Department, collected at Basoli and decided to
organise and start reclaiming their traditional lands which the Forest
Department was trying to prevent them from cultivating. Almost overnight, about
1500 acres of land in these six villages was ploughed and planted with lentils
and oilseeds. The women took turns living in huts in the fields to protect the
crops. As many as 200 cases were filed against them under the Forest Act, but
the women refused to back down and successfully harvested the crop.
This success
galvanised women across the region, who began emulating the same tactics in
other villages. In the next season, the women managed to plough and plant more
than 20 square kilometres of land, and refused to budge even when confronted by
the Forest Department and armed police, resisting physical attacks with the sheer force of
numbers. Several women and children were injured in one incident of unprovoked
firing by the police in 2003. Efforts to file a case against the assailants and
move the courts for protection proved useless – the police, landlords and
Forest Department officials formed a united front against the women who stuck
stubbornly to their slogan: “We have only taken back what was always ours – we
will never give up this land”.
The movement to
reclaim land was growing in scope and scale, and was gaining support from other
people's organisations and rights groups (although local NGOs preferred to keep
a safe distance!). The women cultivated the land collectively, with
the men being involved only in ploughing. The women handled the rest of the
work and guarded the crop with their lives. Despite the fact that the region
has experienced severe drought for the last five years, this degraded and
neglected land has shown good yields of traditional varieties of dryland crops
such as pulses and oilseeds. The income is equally shared among all the women
involved, after setting aside a certain percentage for the organisation. In
most cases, this fund is used to meet the expenses of fighting the hundreds of
court cases that have been filed against the organisation by the Forest
Department and the District Administration.
The passage of a
landmark legislation in December 2006 - the Scheduled Tribes and Other
Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act (popularly known
as the Forest Rights Act) – was a watershed event in the history of this
region. The result of a decade-long campaign and sustained advocacy by a
coalition of activist groups under the banner of the National Forum of Forest
Peoples and Forest Workers (NFFPFW), this legislation is an attempt to redress
the injustices perpetrated on Adivasis and other forest dwellers across the
country while recognising their
traditional rights and roles as ethical
custodians and efficient managers of forest resources.
The declaration
in August 2007 by the newly-elected Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh – herself a
Dalit woman heading the largest Dalit political formation in the history of the
country - that forest-dwellers would be given formal titles to their lands –
brought matters to a head. The women decided that they would immediately occupy
all the lands that they could establish as having been wrongfully claimed by
the Forest Department. As the movement intensified, with more than 20,000 acres
of degraded land being ploughed and planted, reprisals became more brutal.
Hundreds of young Adivasi boys were arrested as suspected Maoists, and there
were several instances of police violence against women. The wave of state
violence was fiercely resisted by the women and culminated in the arrest of
three of the frontline leaders of the movement. These three women were accused
of inciting communities to overthrow the state by grabbing government land. One
woman was charged under the Prevention of Terrorism Act and held without bail –
the first time this law had been used against a woman.
The arrests
sparked wide outrage and sparked a national protest led by the Forest People's
and Workers Forum and joined by many other people's movements. An appeal to the
Chief Minister resulted in the women's release and an order to the district
administration to legalise land occupied and farmed by tribal communities and
distribute land titles to the tillers. The movement still faces opposition and
reprisals by the police and district administration, but is pushing ahead
regardless with the women determined to take full advantage of a supportive and
sympathetic government at the State level. While the leaders have been
released, many of the cases filed against them under the Forest Act have not
yet been withdrawn.
Although the
district administration is now offering to register land titles in the joint
names of husband and wives, it is striking that the women continue to oppose
this and are demanding collective titles in the name of the organisation. They
insist that land is a collective common resource. They strongly oppose the idea
of private ownership, seeing it as the root of the destructive cycle of greed,
appropriation and exploitation that has destroyed the forests and their
traditional way of life. “Our survival depends on the forest, and the forest
depends on us” they say.
Interestingly,
this is a view not always shared by the men of these communities, who have
proved highly susceptible to bribery and persuasion by the Forest Department
and landlords and have often tried to persuade their wives into accepting
individual titles.
With a
membership of more than 10,000, the Kaimur women's organisation has now become
powerful enough to negotiate directly with the district administration and is
now demanding access to public services and enforcement of the minimum wage
legislation. They have confronted caste oppression, filing cases against
landowners and officials from the dominant caste. These dominant communities,
including the politically powerful Yadavs, now generally steer clear of
angering them. The organisation has
taken a conscious decision to provide support and protection to destitute,
elderly and single women in their villages.
Individual women are also renegotiating gender relations within the family
and are no longer willing to take violence from their husbands. Their children,
particularly their daughters, are their allies and are involved at all levels
in the activities of the organisation. The trajectory of the movement reflects
the way in which the women have used their kin networks and relationships with
their natal families to garner support. Despite occasional disagreements, men
have fallen into line and by and large accept that the women are the leaders.
The women have decided to marry their daughters only into villages where a
branch of their organisation is functioning – they describe this as a decision
that will not only provide the girls with protection should they need it, but
will also strengthen the struggle. Yet, some things have not changed. For
instance, when asked if they will bequeath a share in their collective lands to
their daughters, they shake their heads. “She will go to another village, how
can she have a share in our land?” is the answer.
Sorces :
Interviews with Roma and other women leaders of the KKMMKSS, personal
documentation and newspaper articles.
