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May 16, 2004

What ails the country's aborigines?

Kowsar Jahan

Alfred Swaren, an aborigine in his 50s, was killed before he could harvest paddy from his cropland. The miscreants looted his crops, ransacked his house, set fire to it and raped women and a child. The violence was no isolated incident. The ethnic tribal people at remote Bhimpur village in Madhabpur upazila are often subjected to such attacks. On August 18, 2002, armed goons, allegedly hired by a local zotdar, started harvesting paddy grown by Swaren. They chopped him to death on the spot as he and his men resisted them.

This way hoodlums of local zotdars grab lands, loot crops, ransack houses, torture and even kill the aborigines. Grabbing, loot, ransack, torture and killing are the common plights of the aborigines of Bhimpur.

The aborigines of Bhimpur have been suffering since the British colonial rule. The British rulers deprived the aborigines of their rights to lands by formulating discriminatory laws. Non-aborigines, landlords, zotdars and merchants being patronised by the British government also used to exploit and torture the aborigines.

The aborigines, however, tried to resist. They staged rebellions like Aborigine Rebellion (1770-73), Khashi Rebellion (1783), Ganzam Rebellion (1798), Khandesher Rebellion (1808), Santal Rebellion (1855-56) and Munda Rebellion (1857). But these protests could not bring any good to them. Rather, these rebellions brought more predicaments to the aborigines. Even after the country's independence in 1971, no government really moved to change their conditions, nor formulated necessary laws to protect their rights to lands.

The history of deprivation of the aborigines is long. They suffered at each turn of history like British-introduced Permanent Settlement Act, division of India on the basis of two-nation theory, different racial riots, tri-division movement, Indo-Pak war. Many of the aborigines became landless during political and social changes brought about by these historical landmarks.

After 1947, vast tracts of land of the aborigines were illegally grabbed. Their lands were grabbed either through false documents or recording those as vested property. Non-aborigines captured the lands of aborigines by faking official documents. Besides, the aborigines who left the country during various movements or revolts did not get beck their lands after they had returned.

It happened since there was lack of adequate laws in the country to protect the rights of the aborigines. Still, adequate laws are yet to be formulated. The lone act (S.A. Anti-act 1950, clause 97) is not enough to protect the rights of the aborigines. Now, some 85 per cent people of about 15 lakh aborigines in country's north-western region are landless. The number of the landless aborigines was only 20-25 per cent before division of India in 1947.

The aborigines can easily be cheated because of their simplicity, poverty and illiteracy. Since they are poor and helpless, unscrupulous people take advantage. But when the buyers make official documents for the purchased lands, they make official documents for more lands than they buy. But the aborigines are too insecure and insolvent to go to court.

Lobaybattala is an aborigine-colonised village at Godagari upazila in Rajshahi district. Most of its people are day-labourers. They have little lands to cultivate. Literacy rate is very low there, because their children hardly go to school.

"When we go to cultivate our lands our forefathers left for us, we are told that the lands have been sold off to the non-aborigines. But we don't know when and to whom the lands are sold" laments one of the aborigines.

Above all the government needs to come up with massive initiatives to make the aborigines literate. Because the aborigines become dependent on others in these matters and fall victims to cheats due to their illiteracy and lack of knowledge about land law, selling and purchasing of lands, handing over of lands and paying of tax.

-NewsNetwork