Eye on the land’s riches, apathy towards the people
M. A. SIRAJ
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Woes of the tribals in the North-East areas
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An ULFA bombing or an ambush against security personnel in Manipur often pushes the volatile North-East to news headlines. Amid the steady flow of distressing and depressing news, folk dances and songs of the North-East do regale us occasionally. What feeds the discontent of the disparate militant groups in the seven sister States is hardly anybody’s concern in mainland India.
Rich in cultural and bio-diversity, the region is dominated by a vast variety of tribals who have no united voice at the national level. The issues of their livelihood are entwined with the local bio-resources. The tributaries forming the massive Brahamputra river basin or hills demarcate their habitats. Central planning for the region as a whole has focussed on ‘developing the land’ but not the people who find their resources ‘being carted away by outsiders’.
Under the current Eleventh Five-Year Plan, the Centre is building 168 dams to add 90,000 MW of power to the existing capacity of the Central Grid. Of these, 140 are coming up only in the Brahmaputra basin. These will contribute nearly half the projected power. Most of this power will go to industries in the mainland while the North-East people will be left to sulk in the dark, un-electrified villages.
These dams will erode the geographical boundaries of tribal habitats, triggering social conflicts within the region. Intra-regional displacement of these hapless folk will pit them against one another, hill people against the jungle-dwellers, and plain tribesmen against the peasants.The dams will also eliminate vital sources of livelihood for the tribals, thereby further fuelling their sense of deprivation.
Thanks to a few social reformers and enlightened leaders like Dr. B. R. Ambedkar and Mahatama Jyotiba Phule, Dalits woke up early in the last century. But the tribals have no such voice, nor pan-Indian identity or leadership. They are too disparate and socially fragmented to gel into a coherent interest group, votebank or pressure lobby.
Erosion of resources
Gradually, the North-East has been stripped off most of its forests, minerals and water. The region was home to 25 biodiversity hotspots and nearly a hundred tribal communities. Most rhinos have been killed. The Gangetic dolphins in the Assam rivers are now on the verge of extinction. Seven varieties of fish have vanished from the famous Loktak lake of Manipur. The lake has shrunk from 495 sq. km in 1971 to 289 sq. km in 1990. In the same period, 23 varieties of aquatic vegetation also vanished from the lake, thereby depriving several fishing and peasant communities of their livelihood. Major havoc has been wrought by the Loktak Barrage, which prevents the outflow of silt and leads to sedimentation.
Best medicinal herbs are grown in the North-East but patented and turned into drugs elsewhere in India. The best haldi (turmeric) and tea are grown in Assam but go out of the area.
The story of Assam’s petrol and gas being pumped into the Barauni refinery (in Bihar) is of course, too well known.
But the latest threat to tribal livelihood comes from the exploratory mining of uranium in Domiasiat of West Khasi Hills of Meghalaya. Tribals of the uranium-rich region are justifiably apprehensive of the hazardous radioactive residues that will remain with them while the uranium will go to mainland reactors. The number of dams coming up in Arunachal Pradesh is likely to aggravate seismic activity in the region.
Social activists from the North East are wary of the insensitivity of the media towards the people of the region.
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